Snapshots
by Blame-It-On-The-Alcohol
Summary: Stories of life, love and everything in between.
1. Death

**Hey guys :)**

**So, I caught sight of The Ultimate Fanfic Challenge 200 Prompts, and because I have exams coming up, and I'm clearly a raging masochist, I figured, hey, why not? **

**This is a collection of drabbles of all kinds. Romance, angst, fluff, canon, non-canon, completely cracked out AU, all manner of weird and wonderful ships - you'll find them here. The prompts won't be in order. Only one rule; the first drabble starts at 100 words, the second at 200, continue ad infinitum or until my brain/wrist/keyboard gives out. **

**Oh, and if anyone wishes to suggest something for a certain prompt, go right ahead! :)**

**I'll kick off with the first prompt; Death. Let me tell you, 100 words is ****_hard._**

* * *

**6.) Death**

Craters don't form gradually. They slam into something perfect and blow it into shards against the wall. Nothing you can do to stop it; nothing but watch.

And watch she had, as his monitors went dead. Then his friend's, a short five minutes later. Probably not a coincidence.

Wilson. Her world in six infinite letters. And House; the man she'd almost grown to love, simply because Wilson did. Gone like wisps of smoke. The bus had crushed them both. Wilson's heart; House's femoral artery. Both irreparably broken - like her, now.

She could do nothing but watch.

Watch her life flatline.

* * *

**I'll try and keep the updates regular, but GCSEs are a bitch, so there may be days where I don't update. Please review and tell me what you think - it honestly means the world and I try and reply to reviews or return the favour where I can. **

**Enjoy!**

**Kara x**


	2. Bittersweet

**2.) Bittersweet**

Everything about her was a clash, a contrast, two sides jarring and scraping against each other. And he loved her for it.

There was her cold and calculating "Super Über Cut-Throat Bitch' persona, which he knew she enjoyed immensely; it got her ahead, at the cost of acquaintances she wouldn't have cared about anyway.

And there was the other side. Amber. The softness in her eyes when he'd remembered her birthday (as if he'd forget) and showed up with a bunch of white lilies after work; knowing without being told that she didn't much care for presents - gifts meant she owed people. The laugh she used with him; not the icy trill, but the loud, unattractive (to anyone but him), warm explosion of joy she saved for special occasions.

Sometimes they worked, and sometimes they didn't.

All he knew was that every morning, his first thought ran to which Amber was lying next to him. Every cutting word and exasperated look seemed to hurt more than the last. Every "I love you" tasted bittersweet.

_No. You're wrong. Half of you loves me. The other half tolerates._

And for now, at least, that was enough.

But for how much longer?


	3. Light

**10.) Light**

When you realise that you're in love, it's the strangest feeling in the world. Someone she'd loved once described it as 'a bomb detonation in a sealed matchbox', and she'd somehow loved him even more for how perfect the description was.

And now he was dead, and she was cracked across the seams and staring down from the balcony over the lobby. Not sure why she was here, but then again, very sure. She was waiting for him again. Chase. It was getting worrying.

It was one of those summer mornings where the sun decides it's going to try its darndest to blind everyone and shines ridiculously brightly through the shimmering glass of the windows and walls. She had to squint and use a binder as a sunshade to see anything more than five feet in front of her.

And then he was there, as suddenly as he wasn't.

He tilted his head up and smiled at her, by now knowing she'd be there. She unsuccessfully tried to stifle a laugh; he'd drawn sunglasses on his face with magic marker and mouthed at her, "It may look convincing, but my eyes are on fire."

Then he was gone, and she was left still laughing through the luminescence that bounced off his features and his hair; he caught the light, he was the light - his childlike glow, and how he hypnotised her.

And now he was wearing magic marker sunglasses, and her heart felt like the sealed matchbox - far too small to cope. So she just looked upwards at the painfully blurred horizon, and felt herself falling in love, as if falling off a cliff; the impact sudden, but with just enough time to think of the end before it came.

Only in her case, it was nothing like the end.


	4. Immortality

**8.) Immortality**

"Would you live forever?"

He didn't look up. Thirteen looked at him strangely, then settled herself in the chair, waiting for him to answer. She had time. For now, at least.

"So, this is how you deal with your new expiration date. Torturing yourself with thoughts of immortality," he finally mused. "I figured you'd be more the 'drown yourself in hard liquor and hot chicks' type."

"Oh, I'm that type too," Thirteen smiled, relishing how he perked up at the mental image. "But the question's been on my mind, and forgive me if I'm wrong, but if you're a type, it's the philosophising one."

"Everybody dies. Philosophy questions the improbable, not the impossible. The question's bordering on asinine."

"Oh, like you don't spend your entire life working in hypotheticals. And how do you know it's impossible? Surely even your ego doesn't stretch to omniscience," Thirteen replied sarcastically.

"Simple logic and reasoning. We all die eventually, be it eaten through by cancer or mauled by wild coyotes. Perhaps we could theoretically live for eternity, but it wouldn't happen. We're just too damn stupid." She could tell House was smiling. "Then again, you're dating Foreman, so logic's probably lost on you."

"Wow, insulting my choice in men. That doesn't sound like a diversion tactic at all."

"What's to divert?"

"Beats me, but there's something."

"What about you? You haven't answered the question either. Would you live forever? Assuming your brain wasn't going to start leaking out of your ears in a decade or so."

"No."

"Quick answer. Interesting. Elaborate."

"I don't particularly feel like watching everyone I know and love die."

House's eyes sparkled. "Hey, no fair. I called dibs on the soul-destroying pessimism before you were even in diapers."

"Should have had it patented," Thirteen retorted.

"Yeah, but that would require effort."

They fell into a comfortable silence for a few moments, Thirteen watching him intently as he stared out of the window.

"I'm not leaving until you answer."

"If you like, I could test that out. With a hacksaw."

"I don't doubt it, but that would require moving, and I've stolen your cane."

"You-" he looked up to see her twirling it victoriously from the other side of the room. "Impressive," he conceded.

"Answer."

He sighed, exaggeratedly. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because life is just too beautiful to give up."

"Really?"

"No. Now give me back my cane, or you're fired."


	5. Destroy

**1.) Destroy**

"How _could_ you?"

House averted his eyes, knowing she didn't want an answer. "A hooker, House? In our bed? I just, I don't - _why_?"

"You don't satisfy me. You're never home; I was getting desperate and figured a hired 'servicer' was better than an ex-girlfriend." He hated how his voice sounded; monotonous and arrogant and suitably convincing. Hated his words. Hated himself.

It would've been so much easier if she'd cried, screamed, hit. That much, he could deal with. Instead, she just stood there. Her eyes were red, but she wasn't crying. Not now. Just standing there and forcing him to watch her heart disintegrate.

"So it's my fault, is it?" _Come on. Insult me. Hit me. Anything._ "Well, at least it's come out now, before we got serious. You can pick up your things tomorrow."

Silence. He shifted his weight to his other foot and turned to look at the door, feeling her stare bore into the back of his head.

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

"I'm not going to apologise."

She laughed, the bitterness ringing against his ears, biting what felt like glass shards into his skin. "Oh no, I'd never expect you to do that. It was just a...necessity. Now get out, because if you wake up Rachel I'll make you explain to her why she's never going to see you again."

That was it. The bullet. He wondered why he'd hoped for it.

"Goodbye, Cuddy."

She didn't reply. The door slammed shut behind him, and he could've pretended it was just a freak gust of wind, but he didn't.

He just sat down on the doorstep, and thought.

The persona was pitch-perfect. House, minus any kind of emotion. Practical. Callous, but not 'intentionally.' Of course Cuddy would believe he'd been desperate for sex; he'd been making lewd jokes for six years before they started dating. He'd never even slept with the hooker - the guilt crushing his chest would have suffocated him; he'd just made the appropriate noises as the door clicked open.

Of course, the ruse hitched on her own insecurities. That deep-set belief that he didn't care for her, when his 'care' had been growing like a saccharine tumour against his heart for years. Or his lungs, considering he now could barely breathe.

For a second, he wondered if he'd done the right thing. Then his ringtone hit the air.

"All that happens is happiness, happiness..."

He didn't even look at the caller ID before bringing the phone to his ear, smile growing broader. "Wilson."

"Did you do it?"

"Yeah. She took it remarkably well."

"I'll see you in twenty minutes."

"Can't wait."

"House?"

"What?"

"I love you." His voice cracked slightly on the 'love.' House understood; fifteen years is a long time.

"Ditto." He clicked the phone shut. He wasn't going to say it on Cuddy's doorstep, but his mind screamed it.

He'd loved Cuddy.

He honestly had.

But it wasn't even a choice.

It had always, always been Wilson.


	6. Hate

**4.) Hate**

She didn't know why she'd come back, but she had.

Her fingers traced down the achingly familiar railings, tapered doorframes, walls slightly darker than she remembered. Though the people hadn't changed; so busy and wrapped up in their lives that they didn't even bother with eye contact. Normally that would annoy her, but now...it was a welcome attribute.

She lost herself in the blurring, shifting crowd and shut her eyes, pushing forward until her shoulder hit the cold metal of the elevator door; slipping through the widening gap into the enclosed space beyond.

"What floor?"

_I don't have a damn clue._

"Four."

_Of course. House's floor._ She mentally kicked herself, because now the other people in the elevator were giving her strange looks.

"Hey, are you..."

"I used to be," she cut him off, waiting desperately for the doors to open.

When they did, she bolted out into her old home and started walking. No idea where she was going, or what she was doing, or why she hadn't slept a full night in months.

She only knew that something was crying out for her.

Or someone.

* * *

Cameron's chest tightened, and she bit back the tears burning behind her eyes.

She shouldn't have come. Everywhere she turned brought back bittersweet memories; as if wandering aimlessly through the wreck of an old childhood home - your old life, twisted beyond recognition.

And the noise! With House, everything else was silent as they traversed the marble floors discussing cases - as if they were in a bubble. But now the sounds swelled to breaking point around her, a cacophony, an overload of melodious children's laughter and cut-glass arguments on Bluetooth headsets and apologies that meant nothing and a million lives winding intrically around each other, for better or (usually) for worse. She was smart enough to sharply turn her head and squeeze her eyes shut as she passed House's office, but not smart enough to stop listening.

"-can't be lymphoma; no swollen-"

_Lymph nodes_, she silently added to the stolen snapshot, feeling a knot fasten uncomfortably in her stomach.

As she walked past, the sounds of voices died down to muffled whispers, and a new one caught the air; a juddering current that flew back and forth across the walls. She sharply veered around the corner and the sight filled her with helpless dread.

Chase, sprawled against a glass wall, clutching at his throat.

"CHASE!" She flew towards him, forgetting anything else as he desperately gasped for air that wouldn't come; eyes barely registering she was there.

"Help-"

She tried to find any evidence of a pneumothorax or airway blockage, her ER training kicking her into autopilot, but nothing made sense until she briefly glanced into the room behind him.

A blank, deadened hospital room, like any other except for the faint dark stain on the wall.

_Dibala's._

_Panic attack._

As she stared, his shallow breaths slowly calmed down to a normal rhythm, and he coughed out something that sounded like her name.

"Chase," she whispered.

"Yes?"

"I don't hate you."

"You - what?"

"I don't hate you. Nobody does. God or anybody."

A weight she hadn't noticed was there fell from her shoulders, as if an anchor had been released.

"I - Cameron -"

"I have to go."

She silently picked herself up, leaving him in Dibala's shadow, the rooms racing past that the ghost of her old life still haunted. But this was now. The past was done.

She clicked the 'down' button frantically, her lips curved into something like a smile.

That was the past.

And she was never going back again.


	7. Dark

**9.) Dark**

Christopher Taub sighed, glancing at his watch for the fifth time in the past minute. Of all the crappy jobs House could have set him - anything from clinic hours to breaking into a former SAS agent's house wearing a bullseye costume - supervising a sleep study had seemed almost soft by comparison. But now it was going into the fourth hour, and the boredom had settled heavily into his chest, threatening to overcome him.

The only thought keeping him awake was the very real possibility that if he fell asleep, he'd probably wake up in some kind of cage.

"Thirteen's a clever bitch," he muttered under his breath, cursing himself for not being smart enough to run for it first. She'd been tasked to help him, but he found it hard to believe that it took two hours to get Chinese food.

Well, he smiled, it was still worth it. After a particularly trying week, House's latest 'massage therapist' (for a hefty fee) had pulled out a syringe of sedatives halfway through and stuck him in the arm. It took House a full thirty seconds after he came round to realise he was fastened to the ceiling of a clinic room, with an obese patient repeatedly poking him with his own cane.

He laughed out loud as he thought of the page he'd received fifteen minutes later.

"GOOD ONE. YOU'RE DEAD."

Still, if Thirteen didn't return with some kind of food soon, he figured he would likely die. Of hunger, at least.

After half an hour more of mind-numbing silence and his stomach rumbling obnoxiously, he figured his hunger just edged out the threat of retribution and he unlocked the door of the observation room, resolving to quickly grab a sandwich and kill Thirteen mentally a few times.

Taub headed towards the elevator, but a few steps away he began to hear a strange noise through the deadened silence of the near-empty hospital. A kind of hollow banging, as if pounding against a wooden door. Confused, he poked his head around the corner, and saw the door of a closet visibly shaking with the noise.

"Who's in there?" he shouted, his first thought running to an escaped patient, like the psychotic astronaut during the selection process. "Are you okay?"

"Help," a voice replied weakly. A familiar voice.

"Thirteen? Is that you?"

"I came in here to borrow a spare mattress so one of us could get some sleep, but the door shut behind me. It's jammed. It won't open."

"One sec," he replied, ramming his shoulder against the door, but it was stuck fast. "Sorry, Thirteen, looks like you're stuck here 'till morning."

A strange, high-pitched noise laced through him. It sounded like...a strangled sob.

"Thirteen, are you crying?"

"No, just annoyed," she snapped, but her shaky voice betrayed her.

"Well, this is interesting," he mused.

"No, it isn't. Is there a light out there?"

"I never would've pictured you as claustrophobic - wait, a light? Why? Surely it'll be easier to get some sleep without it."

"I have a book. I want to read it," she lied. It sounded unconvincing, even through the door.

"Are you - are you scared of the dark?"

"Shut up," she hissed.

"Well, this is interesting. The vampire needs a night-light."

He hadn't meant to be mocking, but she made an agitated groan as if holding back tears, and he felt slightly guilty.

"I'll see if there's a light."

"My mother," she suddenly said.

"What?"

"My mother. When I was little. She stumbled into my room in the middle of the night, pitch-black, started thrashing around, fell on me. It was just a simple traumatic event."

"Right."

"It's not even that big a problem."

"Of course."

"I can handle it."

"I'm sure."

"So don't try and read anything metaphorical into it."

"Okay."

"Seriously, I'm fine."

"I get it," he sighed irritably, fumbling for the light switch. "I believe you."

"Taub?"

"Yes?"

"Could you...stay here?"

"Sure."

He sat down against the door, waiting for her to say something. Silence ensued.

"You do know he's going to find out about this."

"I'll just have to stockpile some more sedatives, then."

Taub smiled.


	8. Love

**3.) Love**

_Just say it._

"I..." The four letters stuck stubbornly in her throat, and she cursed to herself, striking the Thirteen in the mirror with the back of her hand. "Come on! It's four goddamn letters. And it's not like she's going to reject you."

She knew that much, at least. The girl had pursued her to a degree that, if there wasn't a mutual interest, would have bordered on stalking. Ever since things had fallen through with her previous girlfriend and Thirteen had returned to House's team, there had been this intoxicating fire in her eyes whenever they were in the same room. It was actually quite flattering; Alice had loved her, so had Foreman...but neither of them were so...enthused about it.

Then again, she'd rarely said it back to them, either. Psychology was useless; her case was so easy that if she went to a psychiatrist she'd basically be burning her money. She didn't want to say the damn four letter word because it had hurt her so much in the past...but that was the past. She wasn't over it, of course, but the fact that it was obstructing her annoyed her.

_Got to find a way around this._

"I...like you." _Yeah, as if that hadn't been blindingly obvious from the second she'd taken her back to her flat on the third date, and the walls had shook so hard the neighbours probably suspected an earthquake._

"I'm in 'like' with you." _What are you, ten?_

"I would tell you I love you, but I don't want to get hurt." _Brilliant idea. Why don't you stab her through the heart a few times while you're at it?"_

"Love is such an overused word..." _Seriously, can you hear yourself right now? Because if you could, you would be projectile vomiting._

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" She hated how obnoxiously right her subconscious could be. "I can't do it! Not now, not ever! She's just going to have to face that I'm a lost cause in yet another way - I'll never be able to tell her I love her!"

And, of course, that was the exact moment the door opened behind her. She winced, but didn't look.

"Go away."

"So, you're planning to tell her then?" Wilson's voice sounded strangely buoyant. Thirteen relaxed slightly. "I guess. Maybe tonight, if I don't choke to death on the syllables."

"I doubt you'll have to worry about that."

"How do you figure? You clearly don't have the problem, considering how many ex-wives you have. You've got enough 'I love you's' under your belt to fill a chick flick."

The laugh that came back was...off, somehow. "Remy, look behind you."

Thirteen froze. _Fuck_. She slowly turned around to what she knew would be there, or rather who; her, perched on the windowsill, her head tilted and that infuriatingly gorgeous smile on her face.

"Guess you won't have to worry after all."

"You're good at impressions."

"I'm also an expert marksman and unbeatable at tic-tac-toe, not that I'm boasting or anything."

Thirteen flew across the room, intending to head for the door, but halfway there she caught her gaze and her head started to spin and all of a sudden she was kissing her, deeply, sweetly, passionately.

Jessica Adams broke the kiss and pressed her lips to her forehead, smiling against her skin. "Y'know, I'd quite like to hear those words again. They're really quite lovely in your voice."

"I." Thirteen stopped for a second, expecting the crushing doubt to press into her throat and cut off her words, but nothing came. "I love you, Jess." The words tasted like euphoria, and she laughed in spite of herself. "I love you." Her head was light, and spinning even faster. "I love you!"

Adams sighed in contentment. "That'll do for now. But only for now." She jumped off the windowsill to face Thirteen and fastened her arms around Thirteen's waist, smoothly pulling her closer. "God, I thought this...my feelings...I thought I just wanted to get back at my husband. Took all of two hours to figure I was wrong."

"Well, I do have that effect on people." They were staring into each other's eyes now; Thirteen had begun to relish the feeling, as much as it was a rom-com cliché.

"To be honest, I doubt I even have to say the words back."

"Very true," Thirteen agreed. "But it'd be nice to hear them."

"And with all the effort you went through, you could almost say I was...obligated."

"Wouldn't argue with you there."

Adams chuckled. "I love you, Remy Hadley."

Thirteen closed her eyes and rested her head softly against Adams', not even caring that the door was open.

Sweeter words had never been spoken.


	9. Happiness

**5.) Happiness**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Orson's 'Happiness'. If I did, I wouldn't be broke.**

_"Do I really need a reason?"_

Everything does. If there wasn't reason behind every word, every step, we'd be floating aimlessly in a cloud of apathy and the human race would've died out eons ago. He knows that. But Wilson...as much as he can meticulously document the reasons behind their 'friendship' (the name seems incomplete) it's the only part of his life that even if it were illogical, even if it made absolutely no sense and just lay there like a broken jigsaw piece, which it often does; he just wouldn't care.

_"Is it really such a big deal?"_

Wilson's...there. No firework displays or fanfares about it; he smashed into his life and then melted through all the corners and crevasses, encompassing everything. Colours are him, textures are him - the face that flashes in front of his eyes during his epiphanies is always the same image; Wilson, just after he'd thrown the bottle. Fierce, illogical and undefined. But there's never been a song-and-dance about it. That just isn't their style.

_"This just seems like the right situation,"_

It's never right! There have been thousands of moments, some almost as if staged, but every time he panics, the 'what if's' fastening tightly around his neck until he can't breathe. There have even been moments where Wilson's seemed to hold back, but House knows he must be imagining it. It's the only explanation. Actually, it isn't. He just ignores the other one, because whilst he's wrong all the time, being that wrong just isn't on the cards.

_"To say how I really feel."_

_I love you._

He grabs the pill canister, shakes two into his hand. Obviously he loves him. It's been blindingly obvious for years; so much so, it infuriates - nothing about him should be that obvious, not even his limp. But even House doesn't know in what way, or why, or how. Romantic love doesn't fit like it should. The thought of having sex with Wilson is by no means unpleasant, but more surreal than anything else. And marriage? Trying to fit their faces onto smiling wedding photographs feels like toddlers shoving square pegs into firmly circular holes. Though trying to coerce Wilson into a wedding dress...now that would be fun.

But that's exactly it; the situations are what don't fit. But Wilson staring into his eyes make them melt away, as if green-screens suddenly set to default. Wilson seems more real behind the backdrop. He likes it when they're together. They work, they bounce off each other, higher and higher; into orbit, spinning uncontrollably. He loves him. But he's sure he will never say it. House wonders if this will kill him.

_"And I love the way that you look at me,"_

Always. Anger, joy, that flirtatious don't-play-me glare in the middle of a game. His eyes are past any clichés. His eyes don't matter. But the brightness behind them lights them up; Christmas trees through a power outage.

_"'Cause God, I can't stop looking at you,"_

He probably stares at the back of Wilson's head even more than Cuddy's ass. Though it's close. Sometimes he's rewarded; Wilson will look back, see House staring after him, and smile that achingly sweet you-actually-care-you-heartless-jackass smile. It's only occasional, but often enough for House to do it every time.

He's not sure if Wilson even realises, but then again Wilson knows nothing. He hopes.

_"And the sweetest thing that you do for me, baby, is all the little things that you do."_

The morning House realised he loved Wilson, Wilson had walked into his office during a particularly tough case. House was ferociously bouncing his ball against the wall, when it cracked after a particularly vindictive throw and fell to the floor. Without even thinking, Wilson walked out, went straight to his desk and pulled out an identical ball, tossing it to House as he returned. Turns out he had kept several replicas, just in case.

House promptly received his epiphany and stormed out to save the patient, leaving Wilson to roll his eyes alone in the office.

But that was the second epiphany; the first had hit as soon as Wilson had walked back in with the identical ball.

I love you.

* * *

House closes his eyes as the song swells around him, full and rich with happiness, then jolts at the sound of a key clicking in the lock.

"Hey, House," Wilson says from the other side of the room, closing the door behind him. "Been lazing around all day?"

"Pretty much." Heartbeat racing. Stomach; butterflies. This used to be intoxicating. Now it's...well, still intoxicating. Almost more so.

"What's that song? I recognise it."

"Oh, nothing."

He hates himself so much right now; the Vicodin's short-circuiting, pain shooting through his leg as flashing lights dance in the corners of his eyes, slightly too far to reach. Happiness. He wants it so badly he can taste it, tangy and electric on his tongue; but when it's lying in his grasp, that vindictive twist of the wrist, his mind takes over.

Wilson leans over his shoulder, clicking 'Shuffle' and watching as the first song of hundreds pops up. House has a feeling he knows which one.

Actually, he's wrong. It's worse.

'Too Late' by No Doubt hums tauntingly through the speakers.

_Please, let this not be my fate._


	10. God

**7.) God**

The soft murmurs weren't what was keeping her awake - not even close - but they were enough to provide a welcome distraction.

Cuddy lifted her head to look at her daughter. Rachel seemed so achingly tiny against the monitors and the IVs hooked into her veins; she'd pick her up and hug her if she wasn't scared she'd shatter into a million pieces. She was curled up tightly under the bedsheets, her eyes shut in a restless sedative sleep.

They were wrong, Cuddy thought darkly to herself. From the second she'd adopted Rachel, every doctor had told her; you're always going to see the worst case scenario, you're going to think her snuffles are the bubonic plague - take a step back. And she had. And it had nearly cost her everything.

_Meningitis_. The word tasted poisonous. She'd come home after a long day at work, to find Rachel sprawled out on the floor in her room; she'd assumed she'd just been tired, until she saw her leg - swollen, terrifying purple, red streaks shooting upwards. Septicaemia. She'd thought her heart was going to give out. Cuddy winced when she thought about where she'd found Rachel; sprawled underneath the light switch.

Meningitis causes severe sensitivity to light. She'd heard it was like burning alive. She - she was trying to -

Cuddy put her head in her hands. Her precious daughter...she'd promised Natalie that she'd protect her. And she'd failed.

And House? House had gone out to get ice. An hour ago. She hoped he hadn't bailed, but a tiny voice inside her was adamant.

_He can't handle it...he's gone!_

To distract herself from that bitter thought, she focused harder on the soft murmurs that were floating through the wall of the hospital room. It sounded like someone talking in the corridor outside, but she couldn't make out the words. Maybe it was someone else who couldn't bear to see their life tied up in plastic tubes and closed eyes.

Tentatively, she got up, and started walking slowly towards the door, seeing if she could get a glimpse of whoever was outside. She came to the door and poked her head around, not wanting to leave Rachel - not again.

What she saw came as a surprise.

"House?"

House was crouched at the edge of the corridor, his forehead pressed into the wall, eyes closed. Judging by how white his knuckles were, his leg clearly didn't like being bent, but he wasn't moving. Except his lips. Whispering repetitive, soft syllables that drifted past her into the room behind.

"House."

He didn't respond. She leant as far out of the room as she could without leaving it, and caught two words.

"Rachel" and "God."

_House...praying?_

"House!"

"What?" he growled defensively, turning sharply around, only to visibly relax when he saw her. "Rachel. How is she?"

"Were you praying?"

House's eyes widened, and he looked away from her, searching for a joke, a witty comment, a sarcastic excuse. None came. "I guess."

"But you don't believe in God!"

"No," he agreed, "but you do. And she might."

Cuddy just stared at him, unable to think of a reply. Before she could respond, one of Rachel's monitors started beeping and her throat tightened.

"Go. She's probably pulled an IV out in her sleep." House deftly flipped the cane upwards and levered himself to his feet, ignoring the pain radiating up his leg. "I'm fine. Go," he repeated, when she didn't move.

Cuddy wordlessly obeyed, turning around and rushing to Rachel's side, instantly identifying the loosened IV and inserting it again with shaking fingers. Rachel barely stirred. Thank God for morphine, she silently thought.

The clack of House's cane against marble grew louder, until she heard the door creak open. "How is she?"

"Her vitals look good. The antibiotics seem to be working, so it looks like amputation won't be -"

"That's not what I meant."

"I know," Cuddy sighed, and tears burned like acid behind her eyes. "She was just so...scared. She woke up in the ambulance and didn't have a clue what was happening, or why I was panicking...she didn't even scream - just cried her eyes out because sirens scare the hell out of her." She choked back a sob, feeling House step forward and lace his fingers through hers. "I promised I'd keep her safe - and now -"

"It's not your fault. You can't blame yourself; it won't do her any good - it'll only hurt you. Which you don't deserve, because judging on how miserable you get every day for the first hour you're away from the brat, you're a better mother than a hell of a lot I've met."

At times Cuddy hated House's practicality, but now wasn't one of them. "Thanks, House."

"Don't mention it. Hey, since it's..." he checked his watch, "three in the morning, you feel like getting some food? I'm starving, and even crappy hospital food is starting to sound vaguely edible."

She smiled faintly. "I would, but I don't want to leave her."

"She'll be asleep for hours! If you want, I can take a photo of her and carry it down to the lobby, and you'll be able to see exactly what's going on up here!"

"I know," she bit her lip. "But I just - I don't want to go away again. You can go get a sandwich and bring it back up here, if you want."

After a few moments of silence, House sighed. "I guess I can last a few more hours." He collapsed heavily into one of the chairs next to Rachel's bed and propped his leg up, fiddling with his cane to try and hide the look in his eyes - the look that told her he didn't want to leave, either.

Looking at them both, Cuddy felt a surge of love hit her chest that nearly bowled her over. And suddenly, she just knew they were both going to be okay.

Because there was no way God could have forsaken either of them.


	11. Smile

**I'm so happy; I'm at 1,000 hits! Thanks to everyone who's read my fic so far, and thanks particularly to OldSFan for reviewing :) Remember, reviews make me write better! **

**Kara x**

* * *

**11.) Smile**

"My patient is smiling," House yelled as he barged into Wilson's office.

Wilson glanced up from his paperwork as House pushed the door shut with his cane. "They're probably happy you left. God knows I will be."

"Words can hurt, you know. And who said anything about her being happy?"

Wilson tilted his head and looked quizzically at him. "This may be unbelievably stupid of me, but usually I tend to assume that smiling people are happy. Like how motionless people are unconscious and how limping doctors are obnoxious pill-poppers. Am I wrong so far?"

House's eyes glinted. "She's got lockjaw. She's in complete agony, yet to the rest of the world, it looks like she's smiling."

Wilson opened a drawer and shoved the paperwork into it, knowing from experience that he wasn't going to get anything done right now. "What's that I hear? It almost sounds like...one of your metaphors. Or someone screaming. It's hard to tell the difference anymore."

"She's just like this boy wonder oncologist I know," House loudly interrupted, "who contorts his face into a smile for everyone he sees, be it carcinoma-ridden toddlers or his dashing parasitic leech of a best friend, while behind everyone's back he's tossing back antidepressants like Tic-Tacs. I think you might know him."

"You mean to tell me Dr. Rogers is depressed?" Wilson feigned shock as House rolled his eyes. "Seriously, House? Has your misery really come to such a level that you're now against _smiling?_ Next you'll be setting kittens on fire."

"Smiling is just another social pretence we use to try and reassure the rest of the world that everything's okay, even though it isn't, and that we're happy, even though we're not."

"It makes people happy, which in turn makes you happy."

"Oh, go rescue some abandoned puppies, you delusional, saccharine moron. You smiling does not make other people happy any more than you sustaining some well-deserved gunshot wounds would make other people's stomachs tear open."

"My, you do paint a graphic picture," Wilson replied sarcastically. "But if your expression doesn't affect people, it's better to smile than to scowl, because smiling uses fewer muscles. Allows you to conserve more energy for useful actions. Such as walking out of my office, for instance."

House tossed his cane to the floor and sat down on Wilson's couch, propping his feet up on the arm-rest. "Expression does affect people. But you smiling doesn't make people happy. It irritates them."

"And since when have you had a problem with that?"

"I don't, when it only affects other people. But this irritates _me_."

"Dear God," Wilson exclaimed, "we can't have that."

House turned his head to look at Wilson. "You're more sarcastic than usual today."

"Oh, you noticed. I've been taking classes," Wilson smiled.

House sprang to his feet, "See! You're doing it again! You're smiling for other people's benefit!"

"Oh, for God's sake..."

"Don't talk to the Nonexistent One, it can't hear you."

"So, what? You just want me to stop smiling? Even when I want to?"

"Yes! Especially when you want to!"

"That doesn't make any sense!"

"You're you, Wilson. When you want to smile, it's normally to make some sick puppy - metaphorical or literal - feel better. But sick puppies don't want to see happy, healthy puppies parading around. They want to be around other sick puppies so that they don't feel alone. Or they want to be around sicker puppies so they feel better. Or maybe they just want a squeaky toy to chew the hell out of." House blinked. "I think I lost the metaphor. What were we talking about, again?"

"I forget. Why don't you leave, and then come back when you remember?"

"Sure, I'll - oh, you minx."

Wilson was now leaning across the desk, with that slight glow in his eyes that always came from being near House. "House, you can't talk about why people smile. You never do it. You're allergic to any outward displays of happiness, because you're miserable and you want the world to know it. You want the universe to have a constant reminder that it screwed you over."

"You're wrong, Wilson," House replied flippantly, but there was a new kind of look in his eyes. Barely detectable, but there. Panic.

"Fine. Prove it. What makes you smile? Ever?"

"Well, there's sunshine on cloudy days, and frolicking through grass fields in the springtime..." House pretended to look wistfully into the distance.

"Yes, House. Make a joke and pretend you're just withholding the answer, when in reality you can't think of one."

House now looked annoyed, which pleased Wilson, because when House was annoyed he tended to haemorrhage information. "Puzzles. My puzzles make me smile. At least when I solve them."

"You smile because you've proved to yourself that you're still a diagnostic genius, that you still have a purpose. It's narcissistic."

"So?"

"I bet you can't give me an instance where another person made you smile. As in, a genuine, healthy relationship with someone else. Like normal people have."

"Cuddy," House shot back.

"Smiling when she bends over does not count."

"Fine," House sighed exaggeratedly. "Stacy."

"That's true," Wilson conceded, "but then you panicked, and pushed her away at the first opportunity."

House gestured to his leg incredulously.

"We're not opening that can of worms again, House," Wilson cut him off before he could protest. House muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," House snapped. Defensive. Wilson was interested now.

"What did you say?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It always matters. What did you -"

_"You."_

"What about me?"

"_You_ _make me smile._ All the time. Your comments, your glances, how you know me, how you don't, how you pay for my lunch, how you're my reluctant conscience, how you smile - you're in my head, Wilson. You make me as close to happy as I get." House groaned and covered his eyes. "See? The sappiness...I think I'm melting."

Silence. House put down his hands and looked over at Wilson, who had frozen.

"Well? Are you happy now?"

Silence. Then Wilson spoke.

"Yes, actually," he smiled. That genuine, goofy, infectious smile that set the room aglow. And House suddenly smiled back at him, almost involuntarily.

The moment was rich and colourful; then, as suddenly as it began, House broke it by staggering to his feet, that 'epiphany' look in his eyes, and started rushing towards the door. "The stiff shoulders weren't from the cleaning job," he muttered, glancing briefly at Wilson before rushing out of the office.

Wilson just stared after him, still smiling.


	12. Insanity

**15.) Insanity**

_Am I insane?_

The question hangs in the back of her mind; a stain, an imprint, a scratching clothes-tag against her skin that she can't quite pull off. That label, printed in black ink all over her old files. _Mentally incompetent._ Which is really just a euphemism for 'crazy' and a crappy one at that, since euphemisms are supposed to make her feel better, but this one is worse.

Incompetence she'd always expected, but at fifty, not fifteen.

She's often thought about it. That simple, beguiling question. It's become like a blackened apple in her fruit bowl, or a broken Christmas card blaring a tinny rendition of Jingle Bells from under a stack of wrapping paper in late January. Once interesting, novel, even beautiful; but now it's festered and decayed into a tumour, clawing its way into her brain.

(Except this is worse even than her real brain tumour, because this one can't be cut out with any scalpel.)

Even now, half a life later (and the records for the first half wiped clean), she always returns to the same answer.

"I don't know what insanity is."

Only difference is that now, she has far more reference points.

Her mother's always been her first thought, and just as quickly eliminated. Insanity can't be that detached, that _clinical_. Wires fraying, electricity circling in maddened loops and twisting her limbs into frenzied, hideous dances - that was all that was happening to her mother; changing light patterns on an MRI screen. Insanity couldn't just be an electrical fault; at least, she hoped. If she was little more than a defective android, then nothing was worth anything.

Her father, even? Condemning himself to a wife with a genetic grenade hooked up to her nervous system, to a marriage with an expiration date, to a life that would never quite be his again, even after she'd gone. To hospital appointments and sleepless nights and pitying glances. And sacrificing his children to the same fate...surely that was the definiton of insanity? Madness, coupled with bad choices? Surely to be insane you have to do something immoral. Like her. She'd chosen to light the match, chosen to watch the flames bite at her bedroom curtains, chosen to listen as her brother and father gasped awake and sprinted outside, chosen to look on impassively as the fire ate through the silent gap that used to be her mother's bedroom -

Memories. Guilt. Shutdown. Reset. (Familiar protocol.)

No, he wasn't insane, she decides. He was in selfish, callous, shattering love - and while insanity and love may have striking similarities, her cynicism doesn't quite stretch to believing them one and the same.

Her thoughts wrap around an equally familiar face. One she surgically removed from her life almost a decade ago (she was getting too close) and hasn't seen since; Krista Keylock. Her first love that hadn't just been play-acting, hadn't just seen her as a blue-eyed trophy fit for display. She'd seen that Thirteen was broken, feral, destructive; yet she'd actively sought her out, knowing that the pain was inevitable. She'd swept her off her feet and made her so dizzy that she'd been stupid enough to not spare Krista the heartbreak.

Logic and self-preservation - she'd shut off her most fundamental instincts, just for the thrill of the chase and the warmth of another person in her arms, at least for a while. Is that insanity?

Possibly, Thirteen reasons to herself, but love and lust are slight...grey areas. Krista was a spiralling adrenaline junkie, but she wasn't without rationality. She saw the train coming, but figured it was worth it. That she was worth it - that love was worth it.

She owes her everything for that.

Thirteen closes her eyes, trying to distract herself. This always brings back burningly raw memories, of a different her with a different name and a cut-glass stare, strapped to a bed, the dictionary definition spinning wildly in her head. Insanity. Noun. Derivations, etymology, this makes no sense, Latin root, synonyms, _how can I fit into eight letters_? Harsh phonetics, connotations. After a long time repeating it, it scrambles into nonsense; an insignificant arrangement of curving lines. _Help me, help me, help me_ -

Screaming at the door, other arrangements bouncing off the walls back at her. Nobody listening. They did help her eventually, of course, but not quite enough - or quite soon enough - to take away the bitter taste.

Thirteen thinks of her colleagues and smiles to herself. None of them are quite insane, but they all personify aspects of the concept. House, and how he could escape his misery at any time, but he's too scared that he'll lose what makes him special if he's happy. Foreman - she smiled slightly to herself - who let her in, gave her a glimpse of who he was, then panicked and shut her out with arguments and smug looks. Sweet, self-destructive Cameron, magnetised by pain and unfulfillment. Damaged, happy-go-lucky Chase; sailing through life, refusing to let anything matter (because that would mean he could screw it up). Taub, constantly breaking the one thing in his life that didn't need fixing; his marriage. The list continues, and will continue as long as there are medical schools and thyroid tumours and humanity.

What about that girl they treated? Valerie? Sure, she had Wilson's disease, but there was more than that. She couldn't help her psychopathia, but she could help how she acted on it. Nobody forced her to screw over her colleagues or cheat her husband out of his money, but she did. Choice. Immorality. The disease had to shoulder some of the blame, but what lay under the disease clearly had some electrical faults of its own.

That was as close to insanity as she could imagine; having broken sectors, gaps in the wiring, but also choosing to act negatively on them. Hence sociopath mass-murderers were evil, but sociopathic introverts channeling their energy into Minecraft marathons were not.

But where does that leave her?

The 'gaps in the wiring' part, she can tick off, obviously. Not only the Huntington's, but emotional damage, self-destructive personality type...her shrink made a list, which she doesn't feel like revisiting. But she hasn't hurt anyone - not intentionally, not in a long time, and not anymore. So she isn't insane. (The 'yet' echoes tauntingly at the back of her mind.)

She's resolved to herself so many times; that is my one boundary. _I will never intentionally cause harm to someone, ever again. I will never have to look into someone's eyes as I cause them pain. I won't even kill dying patients. That will not be on my conscience._

Her thoughts are interrupted by the phone ringing. She gets up, startled, and reaches for it. Barely anyone calls her anymore - she doesn't tend to give out her number, except on drunk nights out, and the one-night stands know the rules. It's a dead-end audition. No callbacks.

She sighs, picks up the phone.

"Remy."

She takes a second to register it, then her heart freezes in her chest. That voice...

"...Damien?"

Silence. Panic stabbing through her, cold as ice.

_"Help me."_


	13. Distance

**12.) Distance**

Wilson held the thick envelope in the fingers of one hand, the other nestled in a yellowing cast. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that was the reason he didn't want to open it, though. No, that was the handwriting. The spidery, slanted calligraphy that he'd forged a thousand times before.

House's.

It weighed heavy in his hand; too heavy to be a postcard - maybe a letter? But why to him? Why not Cuddy? He knew she hadn't received anything from him; she'd been staring at the letterbox for weeks on end. Sounded like House, though - no qualms about using an SUV as a battering ram against her front wall, but apparently he drew the line at writing a bitter postcard. Logic was never his strong suit in these situations.

If not a letter, what? Maybe a thin package? House sending him a shark tooth necklace from God knows where, he'd kill him - wait, no. That's something he would do, he mused, but only if he wasn't feeling guilty. He's beyond guilty. That's why he's hiding. Wilson liked to imagine House as freezing, hunched over in a tiny cave in Siberia with his beard down to his knees and a ragged knapsack slung over his shoulders, but he knew it was wishful thinking. More likely would be a clean-shaven House in a five-star hotel in the Balearics, alternating his time between hiring masseuses (with the occasional happy ending) and scarfing room-service peanuts by the sackload.

Damned doctor's salaries.

It could be some kind of legal document, he supposed. Divorce papers for Dominika? Or perhaps - a sharp pain shot through his head - a will, a death certificate, an obituary. 'Accidentally' downing one pill too many in the comfort of his hotel room. A clean death. No consequences.

That could go for him, too. Just toss the letter in the fire, he wondered, and you'll never have to know what happened. Unless he comes back. Which he won't. He doesn't care enough for that.

Wilson glanced longingly at the glowing coals in the fireplace, gripping the envelope tighter, moving his arm back to throw it - then tore it open with his teeth and fiddled hurriedly with the paper inside, desperate to see what it was.

Pages. Pages full of ink and his handwriting. He laughed humourlessly - House had even put tiny page numbers in the corner of each sheet. Yes, House, because that's what I need from you.

His brain was screaming at him to leave it, to walk away; but like always, he picked it up, the words soaking into his fingertips. He wondered if they were poisoned.

Wilson began to read.

_Wilson._

_I have a lot to write,  
In an endless length of time.  
To illustrate this fact,  
I've deigned to make it rhyme.  
You see, it's been a month -  
Shit._

A corner of his mouth quirked into something like a smile.

_Might as well continue,  
Since that end is like our start -  
Rules have never been our strong point  
And I'm really not that smart.  
I'm lying. I'm a genius.  
My ego's planet-sized.  
See, I'm wrecking it already.  
I doubt that you're surprised._

_I'm sorry that your wrist  
Is now a little leftward bent,  
And I'm sorry that your car  
Has a quite sizeable dent.  
I won't pay for the damages;  
You wouldn't want me to.  
You'll never be my target.  
That's not enough for you_

_So I must elaborate,  
Though I'd rather face-to-face._

_Alright, I'm not making it rhyme any more, because that would be way too kitschy, and this shouldn't be._

_I'm sorry I hurt Cuddy, but it's little compared to you. And that should tell you a lot, because I broke her house, whereas I just fractured your ulna. And totalled your car, of course. (I did you a favour - it was a crap car.) Fact is, I have many things to be sorry for, and turns out the words come easier when you're writing them and you're just drunk enough that faces are blurred in your memory. So I don't have to look at you as you throw this into the fire._

_I'm sorry for everything I've ever done that's hurt you. I hate saying it, and you won't hear it from me again, and you're lucky I'm drunk, but I love you. Not in the same way as Cuddy, obviously. Sorry, your ass just isn't that good. Anyway, you are my best friend (go figure) (I sound like a twelve year old) and the most important person in my life, and most of all, you haven't left. I'm a train wreck, but you haven't left. I still don't know why. Maybe it's the monster trucks._

_I'm sorry your marriages are all in the toilet, since it's mostly my fault. I just don't cope well with sharing you. Plus, you have to admit, you do attract poisonous hag-witches. Just putting that out there. At least with number two, I reckon I did you a favour._

_Why am I telling you what you probably already know? Because I wanted to lead up to something you don't. When you left after Amber died, I tried to -_

Wilson hadn't realised he'd been holding his breath. He tried to make out the next words, smudged with something that could be a liquor spill or tears. In his heart, he already knew what they were.

_- kill myself. Pills, of course - that's always been my style. Took a few grams of Vicodin, figured it was fitting; live by the sword, die by the sword, etcetera. You know me and my metaphors. I was waiting for them to kick in when Lucas called. Debated not answering the phone, but I figured, might as well tell someone, lest I stink out the joint for a few days before they find me -_

His chest tightened, tears pricking the back of his eyes. He angrily forced them back and crunched the envelope viciously in his hand. How was he - even now - still -

_" - but I never got the chance, because he started talking. Guy doesn't shut up; I might have told him where to go if the Vicodin hadn't started to mellow me out by then. He said he'd been monitoring you, you'd been getting erratic, not sleeping, said he'd heard something on the audio monitor that sounded like crying, you'd been mentioning me more to people, asking Cuddy how I was. So I hung up on him, unscrewed an ipecac bottle, upchucked the pills, went to the hospital, sat in my office didn't sleep. The funeral was two days later._

_I'm coming back in two weeks. I doubt I'll see you again. I just wanted you to know that you change things. You make me want to be better. You make me want to be happy._

_Signed, the morally reprehensible drunkard_

_P.S. you're still not boring."_

Wilson stared through the paper for a few minutes, the words shifting focus, blurring, merging. Then, he jolted out of it, screwing up the letters and hurling them into the fire. They caught quickly.

It didn't matter; as much as he hated the fact, he'd already committed them to memory.

A hollow feeling had spread across his chest, empty, dull. He was giving Wilson the scope to surgically remove him from his life; as if he were only a diseased appendix. Giving him closure. He might never lay eyes on Gregory House again, if that was what he wanted.

A few years ago, he would've leapt at the chance.

Wilson looked up at the ceiling, sentences spinning through his mind, the sunlight from the windows glowing through the thin sheen of tears across his corneas.

Now...he didn't know.


	14. Wedding

**13.) Wedding**

Marriage is strange. At least, the concept is.

Think about it. We are, at face value, carefully moulded sacks of flesh, survival instincts and electrical wiring; glossed over with a polish of empathy and social niceties. We spend decades learning how our chemicals fluctuate, figuring out which colour olive tastes better or whether we should take those shoes in mauve or puce. (Or if there's even a difference.)

Each sack meticulously carves its life out from the blank canvas it's been given, and then BANG! Another sack barges its way in, splices the wood in half, mashes it clumsily with its own and sprinkles the remaining pieces around to resemble a heart. Love. But even that just about makes sense. Procreation needs an emotional backdrop. Monogamous relationships mean offspring will have two human shields instead of one. Well, theoretically.

Yet, one sack gives the other a shiny metal band for their finger (alright, sacks don't have fingers, but metaphors are difficult to sustain) and a signed piece of paper, and suddenly everything changes. Your life not only isn't your own, but it doesn't exist. Neither does theirs. There's only a strange little amalgamation, a whirlwind of household chores and mailboxes and waking up in someone else's arms that seemed a little warmer before. Everything's shared. You're supposed to become practically the same entity, right down to the last name. It's illogical, yet we keep trying.

Something's gone wrong somewhere...yet, I have that same band on my finger.

And it glows in the sunlight.

* * *

"I do."

Wilson's smile broad and genuine, warm brown eyes staring into cold rifts of blue. She's smiling, too. To him, it's the happiest expression in the world. But I can see the forced lines, the muscles curved when they want to be still. The doubts iridescent in her stare.

But who knows, perhaps I'm looking for them.

"Samantha Carr, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do." The inflections are apathetic; the slope of the voice - _stop it, stop it, Wilson's looking at you now, he can see the distaste in your expression. Come on, wrench a smile for all the times he's done the same._

The family, all the friends I don't know or don't care enough to; they're looking at Wilson, then at me. _Thank god, _their relaxed smiles say. _Thank god he's extracting himself from that leech, getting himself married; making himself happy._ It sets my teeth on edge. 'Happy' and 'married' are not synonyms; and 'happy' and 'married to Sam Carr' are near-antonyms.

"You may kiss the bride."

Wilson swings Sam down and kisses her, and the applause surrounds and swells, but I don't care to join in; I'm watching them, intently. Wilson presses the kiss in, but Sam pulls away abruptly. A quick flash of hurt through Wilson's eyes.

And I smile, a real one this time.

I didn't imagine that.

* * *

"How long do you give it?"

Wilson span around to see Thirteen, with a wicked smile and a near-empty martini glass, perched on a bar stool next to him. "I'd say around the year mark. That's when the panic'll set in."

"You're a mean drunk." He unconsciously took the glass from her hand and downed what was left, the slightly tipsy buzz growing brighter. "Alright, I'll bite. At least two years. They're in love, and even if anything goes wrong, Cameron will do anything to save Chase's feelings, and Chase...well, he's not going to let her go easily. He chased her down like a lovesick puppy."

"Really? You're taking the optimistic route? Marriage hasn't just treated you badly, it's slammed you against the wall a few times and run you over with its SUV."

"Poetic imagery. But they're different," he sighed. "They're co-dependent. All my ex-wives became dependent on me. And I enabled it. Then when we got married it became suffocating, so they left." Wilson blinked and stared at Thirteen. "Either I'm more drunk that I thought, or you're better at manipulating."

"Possibly both. But you're not done with marriage." He followed her glance to the dance floor, where a rosy-cheeked Cameron was gazing into Chase's eyes as they twirled together.

"How do you figure?"

"Simple. You're not trying to hit on the hot, drunk bisexual, and you're spending all your time with your near-life partner. Minds are magnetised by certain relationship types, and marriage is the flame to your - hic - moth."

"Life partner?" House's face flitted across his vision. "You don't mean..."

"Hey, I'm drunk." Her face lit up with an evil glow. "I don't mean anything you're not thinking yourself. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go vomit."

Wilson promptly sidestepped her as she staggered into the nearby bathroom, somehow still elegantly. Chase and Cameron's silhouettes were still twining on the other side of the room.

He hoped she was wrong.

(On both counts.)

* * *

Thirteen lay sprawled on the ground, counting the stars.

The grass was wet and cold beneath her bare skin, dewdrops beading on the back of her neck and sending shivers down her spine. She liked this. It had been masochistic at first, but now it had more hope than bitterness.

Clicked her fingers, let her eyelids fall shut. The familiar vision materialised against the black backdrop. Her, sketched in meticulous detail, walking across a shimmering beach with that beautifully clichéd white dress trailing behind her. And It, waiting patiently on the other side with the guests. Watching her breathe, move; come to life.

Who would it be this time? The first question was the same one House, and most others, would likely ask. The damned gender. A default picture sprang to mind - she pushed it away. _Tonight is a night for making things_. Dark hair, wisps catching around her eyes and dancing in the wind. Smooth, curving lines; younger than her, but not by much. Cupid's-bow lips and green eyes that sparkled at the paintbrush's touch; sunlight on algae-stained water. Slim, diminutive. Bouncing with the kind of energy that threatened to carry her away with the next breeze.

Thirteen purposely walked slower, teasing her. She laughed; a melody dissipating into the air, still ringing in her ears. Close, now. Almost close enough to make out the laughter lines by her eyes.

A name sprang to mind -

"Shit," she gasped aloud, bolting upright as the name shot through the fabric of the daydream as if a bullet through paper, crumpling the scene into shards. She didn't even bother to pretend to herself she'd imagined it. _This always happened, she could only get close -_

Oh, the metaphorical implications. Alice, Alice, Alice. The one she pushed away. The one that keeps coming back, but just not literally.

"Let me go!" she yelled futilely into the air, suddenly realising how cold it was outside.

* * *

_This feels...that's it. Two words and I've cracked it. This shouldn't feel anything! It's a business deal, a mindless transaction, yet I've got bloody butterflies in my stomach like a teenager on prom night._

"We get married now?" Dominika gives me a sideways glance, tilting her head and quirking one eyebrow in questioning. It's a surprisingly...alluring look. "I have doctor's appointment at seven."

"What's wrong?" I curse to myself internally; I sound sentimental.

"'Tis woman problem. You don't need to know," she replies, looking confused, yet slightly pleased that I'm actually talking to her.

"Right, let's get this show on the road!" The minister walks briskly into the room, holding out the papers. "We have our witnesses. Do you want to do the whole for-better-for-worse religious spiel, or should we just get on with it?" This guy can tell a green card marriage when he sees one.

"I would, but I'm not on great terms with God at the moment. Non-existent entities can be really bitchy sometimes."

"Right, then. Dominika Petrova, do you take Gregory -"

"Yes."

"Okay, fine. Gregory House, do you -"

"Yes, he does. Can we sign forms now?"

"Okay." He steps back, she deftly curls her signature onto the paper and holds out the pen to me.

I freeze.

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

I don't know. The band fits perfectly. Something's stirring. I don't know. Maybe I get why Wilson liked being married so much. _I just don't know._

But for that split second, I wonder.


	15. Funeral

**14.) Funeral**

**(During House's funeral, I'd like to believe that both House and Cuddy were there.)**

* * *

It was an ordinary funeral, to the untrained eye.

Which in itself was strange, since House was, and had always been, several dimensions outside ordinary. It just served to show, there was no Gregory House anymore. Just a charred, lifeless carcass bound in bare mahogany. Still, though the guests didn't like to think about it, they knew full well House would've hated his funeral. All tasteful and understated and very non-him.

(Of course, House himself could confirm that to them right now, but people tend to get spooked when the corpse that's meant to be in the casket strolls out of a nearby closet and starts bitching about their own funeral. He assumes, anyway.)

"This is a complete crock of shit," House thought boredly to himself, peeking out through a tiny crack in the door. Attending his own funeral...it was bucket-list-worthy; somewhere above skydiving, somewhere below making a murderous android clone of himself to send into the clinic and maul particularly natural-selection-defying patients. What he hadn't factored in was that funerals suck. And how annoying the crying gets. And how all the eulogies are exactly the goddamn same.

"Gregory House was a great doctor..."

_Why thank you. I've spent my entire life seeking your approval, guy-I-haven't-seen-in-ten-years-who-sends-me-crapp y-singing-cards-at-Christmas. Thank you for making a young boy's dreams come true._

"He saved so many lives..."

_Strange how you don't mention how many people I've killed or given tumours, or how many marriages I've broken up, or helped to. Why, do you not want to put a damper on this joyful occasion?_

"He was sometimes difficult to get along with, but..."

_Oh, shut up. Do not belittle my legendary abrasiveness, or it will rise up from the grave and bite you in the ass. Possibly literally._

"...we all loved him, deep down inside."

_I'm touched. How deep are we talking? Do I need a shovel or a pneumatic drill? Tell you what, how about I slice you open and see if my name's engraved on your internal organs? Because what we had was just that special._

Actually, this was growing quite fun. Mocking the small army of ex-patients and vague relatives all looking on blankly whilst the minister droned (_seriously? A religious funeral? Wilson, you asshole_) and fiddling with their phones semi-discreetly. Of course, he was also doing it to avoid seeing the even smaller band of people in the front corner; the ones he actually gave a semblance of a crap about. Cameron had started bawling already, of course. He'd bet Chase would be the next to go. Foreman was also close to tears, surprisingly. His mother, Dominika...man, funerals were depressing.

Wilson was too far out of his field of sight to see. He wondered if he was upset. Crying. Indifferent, perhaps? He thought of that glimpse of Wilson's face before the burning beam fell down; it was like he'd died, right there, in that moment. Guilt lanced through him. He shut his eyes tightly, cleared the image from his vision.

Opened them again, vision blurry - wait, was that what he thought it was?

House craned his neck, stumbling involuntarily onto his back foot and wincing slightly at the impact on his thigh. Yes, it was - a dark figure, face obscured by a shawl, hunched over in a chair at the back of the room, two rows behind anyone else. Only their eyes visible, staring into space.

Now, this was interesting.

The questions instantly started unravelling in his mind. Who was it? Stacy was the first name that he could think of.

"...he was a trying boyfriend, but I...never stopped loving him."

Oh, wait, that's her, he realised. Never stopped loving him...House cracked a half-smile. Mark must not be here. Maybe they argued about it. Maybe they've split up. Maybe I could - the fact that he was supposed to be dead suddenly hit him, and his thoughts fell silent for a moment.

If not Stacy, then who? His brain cycled through the last fifty years. No friends from med school, of course. No friends full stop, except Wilson. Maybe Crandall? No, the guy wouldn't hide at the back. He'd probably bring a bunch of flowers and a muffin basket, for God's sake. Vogler might come to check he was actually dead, but the figure only took up one chair and he'd probably engulf the whole row. Now he thought about it, lots of people could be checking he was really dead. Tritter, maybe? A patient?

He squinted through the hole in the door, trying to get a look at the figure's eyes. "He got me fired," Adams' voice drifted through the door. "I mean...he gave me the guts to get fired." _Wow, Adams, you're really selling me here._ The eyes...aha! Bloodshot. He could detect a hint of red against pale skin. Not overwhelming, though, meaning that whoever it was had been crying earlier, but not now. Whoever they were, they didn't start doing the Macarena when they learned he'd 'died.' Which narrowed it down. Significantly.

Strangely enough, a face he'd only glimpsed once before appeared first. The face of a man with a gun. Which had then proceeded to discharge a slug into his flesh. Vincent Moriarty. He had motives to be here; regret, perhaps, or a twisted sense of pride? But wait, he'd sprinted out of the hospital straight after shooting him, so nobody would recognise him. If it was regret, he'd want people to see his face - a kind of masochism. If it was pride, he still wouldn't want to hide. Besides, no crying from a guy with a gun. And the figure looks more like a woman. Damn, he should know from experience that his first instincts are never right.

Lydia, even? Irrationally, his heart began to race at the thought, a warmth lighting in his chest. No, wait - flame quickly extinguished - she's in Michigan, now, with her husband. Or Minnesota. Or maybe it was Wyoming. Why do I care? He asked himself, already knowing the answer.

The figure shifted uncomfortably in its seat, a strand of hair falling from the shawl, catching across their face. A _brunette_ strand.

Oh, God.

Cuddy.

* * *

"He was my friend. The thing you have to...remember...is that Gregory House saved lives. He was a healer. He -"

House was intently listening to Wilson, listening for any indications in his voice as to whether he was crying, or angry. Currently, indifferent. He hated indifferent. It made guilt spin wildly in his head.

But his eyes were on the figure. Cuddy. She was squirming now, constantly glancing at the door; Wilson was making her uncomfortable, guilty, forcing her to remember. It was obvious, now, that it was Cuddy. The way she folded her hands over her chest. The shawl - he'd caught a glimpse of Rachel wrapped in it before, as an impromptu blanket. The skirt, achingly tight -

_House, now is not the time._

"House was an ass."

_Wait. What? Oh, this should be good._

"He mocked anyone —patients, co-workers, his dwindling friends — anyone who didn't measure up to his insane ideals of integrity. He claimed to be on some heroic quest for truth, but the truth is, he was a bitter jerk who liked making people miserable. And he proved that by dying selfishly, numbed by narcotics, without a thought of anyone."

Brilliant. House cracked a smile. Finally, Wilson was standing up for himself. A flash of brilliance snapped through his mind and his grin grew broader as he fumbled for the disposable mobile in his pocket, tapping frantically at the keys.

"A betrayal of everyone who cared about him - Phone. A million times he needed me, and the one time that I needed him— Oh, come on. This is a funeral. Just get it."

House waited gleefully for him to realise.

"Well, this is embarrassing. Could've sworn I turned this off - this isn't my phone."

He could practically hear Wilson freeze as he read the text, but his eyes were back on Cuddy, who was standing up, collecting her shawl, and slipping out of the door behind her. A cold pang of remorse shot through his heart as he stared after her.

He heard people begin to leave, and listened carefully. Wilson was still shellshocked, he imagined. He'd meet him at their old favourite restaurant later, in a flourish. This was a tryst of epic proportions. He'd cheated death, for God's sake! Yet, his eyes were still trained on her chair.

She'd left a scrap of paper behind.

He waited fifteen minutes after the last one left, peeked out of the door to see if anyone was left, and darted outside, snatching up the paper and racing back into the closet. With shaking hands, he brought the phone screen up to read it through the dark.

Three words.

_"I loved you."_

* * *

Two words of his own.

_"Not enough."_


	16. Fantasy

**Alright, the next seven prompts are the Seven Deadly Sins, so I figured I'd link them together as a little sub-series, called 'Vices and Vindication.'**

**However, it's slightly cracked-out non-canon, so this little interim chapter is here to explain the premise for the next seven chapters. It was meant to be short, but it kind of spiralled (the team is funny when sleep-deprived) so it's now a chapter in its own right. The 'Fantasy' refers to Cuddy's desire to be an evil genius.**

**Enjoy! Kara x**

**P.S. This is set anywhere between late S4 and early S6 in my mind, but no Kutner.**

* * *

**24.) Fantasy**

"House!" An annoyed-looking Cuddy was stalking down the corridor in front of his office, then irritably thrust open the door and glared at him. "We need to talk."

"Ah, Dr. Cuddy. You're looking ravishing this evening," House replied, ogling her shamelessly as he continued to manhandle the giant tennis ball in his left hand. (Her fault - her top was practically see-through under the hospital skylights.)

"House, my eyes are up here."

"But your breasts are down there," he replied wittily, then finally looked up and met her glare with a sigh. "What's wrong this time? Patient's stable, employees are working downstairs and not having psychotic breaks as far as I know, and I haven't done anything to try and bring down the hospital in at least a week. Though I do hear someone who was absolutely not me cleared out the clinic by promising people free codeine if they left. Ingenious plan, if I do say so myself."

"Inspired. House, look at the clock."

He glanced to his right. "It's four in the afternoon. So?"

"Security cameras and employee records say that you and your fellows haven't left the hospital since eight in the morning, _four days ago_."

"Tough case."

"You took on this case yesterday."

"Case before that was tough, too. You do remember what my job is, right?"

"House, what colour is the sky outside?"

"Black, I believe." He looked over his shoulder. "Yep, definitely black."

"It's four in the morning."

"Really?"

"At least in this time zone, yes."

"Well, I don't conform to the restrictive nature of time zones. Viva la resistance!" He thrust his cane upwards in a gesture of triumph. "But yes, I see the problem. The more nights we spend in here, the more nights Taub's wife has to regret her life choices."

"House, come with me."

"Ooh, where, where?" The sarcasm in his voice was tangible.

"My office."

"That, I can get on board with. Though it'd be so much sexier if it was in the daytime."

_"House!"_

"Oh come on, don't pretend you're not an exhibitionist. That top functions better as clingfilm than as clothing. Which I'm totally fine with, by the way."

Cuddy gritted her teeth. "House, my office, now. I may not be able to fire you, but I have no qualms about battering you over the head with your own cane."

"But mooooom..."

* * *

"Right! Do you know why you're all here?"

"House party?" A dishevelled-looking Thirteen tilted her head in confusion. "You'll need a boombox for that."

"If we're getting fired, I'd quite like to know why it didn't happen sooner."

"Did House actually infect that patient with gonorrhea to get his wife to admit to cheating on him?" Cameron and Chase both shot House identical withering looks. He'd hazard a guess that Cuddy had interrupted their sleep. Or possibly fornication.

"Just tell us already," Wilson groaned from the back of the room. House looked back at him and stifled a laugh; he was sporting pyjama bottoms over a 'Viva Las Vegas' T-shirt, mismatched shoes (one a Snoopy slipper and one a frayed-to-near-death Hush Puppy), with multiple dark rings under his eyes and adorably mussed hair that he'd attempted (and failed) to tame with a glob of hair gel.

"Wilson, you look like death."

"Bite me."

"Anyway," Cuddy interrupted loudly, "I've invited - well, conscripted - you all here because I'm staging an intervention. You're all spending every waking moment in the hospital, surviving on cafeteria sandwiches, Chinese takeaway and liberal amounts of coffee, with your only activities outside work being fighting with your spouses," she gave Taub a knowing look, "drinking yourself into oblivion," Thirteen met her stare with a dangerous smile, "and soliciting...relief, via 'massage therapists'." House beamed proudly at her. "This can't carry on."

"Really? Worked for seven years at med school."

"Shut up, House. Basically, my hospital has become your lives, and I don't want that. Creativity is how you crack your cases, and staring at the same walls for days on end doesn't bring any -"

"Five o'clock coffee call?" A woman's voice interrupted her, and Cuddy stopped, turning her head to see a nurse outside the door, holding a tray full of coffee cups. Thirteen eagerly pulled open the door and the six other doctors descended on the nurse, grabbing the containers and downing the scalding nectar in record time.

Cuddy was speechless.

"Wha...I think this illustrates my point."

"House has been paying on-duty nurses ten extra dollars a night to supply our caffeine fix bi-hourly and to stab anyone who falls asleep with a syringe," Taub explained helpfully.

"A syringe of what?" Cuddy wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

"I'm not sure, but last time Chase got a veinful of it he ran off to the hospital exercise room and did interval training for two hours straight."

Cuddy sat down heavily and put her head in her hands. "This can't continue. Thirteen, Chase, everyone...finish the coffee and sit the hell down before you all stroke out." She glared at House again. "They may not be having psychotic breaks yet, but it's not far off."

"I know. Do you have any popcorn? This is going to be highly entertaining. I've got bets going on who will be first to crack, who will be first to strip naked and run through the lobby, first to jump off the roof with paper wings taped to their back..."

"Five dollars on Thirteen for the streaking," Chase piped up, prompting Cameron to hit him.

_Oh my god_, Cuddy thought, _they've all gone insane. Whatever crazy disease House has, it must be contagious. I'm surprised they haven't tried to cure the patient yet by burning Taub as a ritual sacrifice to the Sun God._

"We've thought about it."

Cuddy's eyes widened. "Since when did you become a mind-reader?"

"You were obviously thinking about something insane we could've done. I guarantee, we've probably considered it in the past few weeks. I infected a patient with _gonorrhea_ last week to win a bet."

"Not in the traditional way, I'd hope," Cameron snarked at him.

"Fortunately, no. He weighed about three hundred pounds. Plus, I think the last patient gave me hepatitis. Oh, that reminds me. Wilson," he yelled, "you have to get checked out for hepatitis."

"Okay," Wilson mumbled back, in a haze of sleep-deprivation.

"QUIET!"

Cuddy could feel a migraine coming on.

"Right, I'm staging an intervention. You are all going mental. So, I am ordering you to take tomorrow off. Don't," she snarled at Chase, who looked about to interrupt.

"One of my old childhood friends is holding auditions for a new play she's directing, called Vices and Vindication. It's based on the Seven Deadly Sins. I want you all to audition for the parts of the Sins. Choose between yourselves which part to audition for. I don't give a crap if you can't act, which I doubt most of you can; I just need you out of my hospital, and I owe her a favour. Once you're done, go home, sleep, and come back on Monday. We'll try and keep your patient from bleeding out of their eyes until then."

"But -"

_"No."_

The six doctors fell silent, trying to process this information. A few awkward minutes passed.

"Cuddy?"

"Yes?"

"Did you...drug us?"

Cuddy smiled wickedly. "Only a mild tranquilliser. Normally it wouldn't have any effect, if you weren't all so tired. I knew you wouldn't mistrust the coffee. That nurse isn't only on your payroll."

Silence.

"You -" Wilson collapsed into sleep before he could protest.

"Bitch -" Thirteen followed suit.

Cameron and Chase gave up without a fight, falling asleep simultaneously on the couch. Cameron's head was resting on Chase's shoulder.

"It won't work on me, I've had enough sleepless nights arguing with my wife to be immune to insomnia -" Taub halted, let out a tiny 'Meh' and fell back onto the floor.

House was still sat up, staring at her.

"Good one," he finally managed. "I'm pretty tired, and I'd quite like to see what you have planned, so don't mind me." He lay down crookedly on the floor, rested his head on his hands and started making exaggerated snoring noises, before they quietened into real ones.

Cuddy's evil smile widened.

"Now for phase two," she thought to herself. "Man, now I know why movie villains like their job so much." She walked smartly out of her office into the deserted corridor, taking out her keyring and unlocking the door to the pharmaceuticals closet. Lying on the shelf was six syringes of a custom order.

Sodium thiopental. A barbiturate, but more popularised as 'weakening the resolve of the subject and making them more compliant to pressure.' As close as she could get to truth serum. She wasn't so naïve as to believe it was going to magically make them start spilling their secrets, but hey, it was worth a shot.

"Hey, Regina?" She called from inside the cupboard, poking her head out.

"Dr. Cuddy." Regina, the nurse on duty, appeared from around the corner and smiled wryly at her. "Let me guess; you need some manpower to help get those six sleepyheads into the back of your car?"

"Right first time. If they don't fit, just tie House to the back with some rope and I can drag him down the interstate for a few miles."

Regina's smile now matched her own. "Sounds like a plan."

"Oh, and Regina?"

"Yes?"

"Why didn't I do this years ago?"

Regina shrugged. "I have no idea."


	17. Greed

**And so it begins. Chase is up first. His 'audition' is quite short, because I had to set the premise, but the rest will be longer. Remember, this is meant to be a cracked-out non-canony type thing, so it's meant to be mental. :)**

**Kara x**

* * *

**16.) Greed**

Robert Chase had woken up in many different ways over the years.

Eyes gently opening to the stream of early morning sunlight through his open window; the slam of the front door and the obnoxious hum of his dad's car engine, leaving while it was still dark; the clattering of empty glass bottles, unintelligible drunken screaming and his little sister crawling, terrified, onto his bed, clawing at his legs with five-year-old talons and whispering, "Robby, she's gone mad again, help me -"

Then came death and silent explosions and suddenly he was on his own, where waking up got infinitely better. Cracking fatigued eyes open to a mockingly black sky outside in a barren med school dorm-room. Then, five hours later, falling asleep in a lecture and waking up to a whitewashed ceiling and unfamiliar faces.

And the women; his favourite, waking up to warm skin against his and to another body twisting in the sheets and even, if he was particularly lucky, his eyes snapping open to fingers and lips tracing down his skin, lower and lower -

He'd had many women (and one man, in a drunken misunderstanding) grace his covers over the years, most of them only once. Though nothing seemed quite as satisfying as floating back into consciousness with Cameron's head on his chest, ticklish blonde hair splayed across the covers, murmuring and turning slightly in her sleep, then suddenly letting rip a massive snore and making him giggle endlessly. Love was bliss. He liked waking up to it. (Though the fingers-tracing-down-his-skin worked just as well before as it did now.)

Today's wake-up call was none so pleasant.

"What the hell!" he yelled, watching Cuddy rip a syringe out of his arm. He stared at her incredulously, the hazy events of last night slowly returning. "I'm starting to understand why you're House's nemesis," he muttered. "You're an evil, twisted bitch."

"What was that, Dr. Chase?"

"Nothing," he quickly replied. However pissed he might be about getting sedated, he still liked having his job. And his balls.

Chase started to stand up, but banged his head on something and sat back down, looking around confusedly. He was in the back seat of a car - Cuddy's car, most likely, considering the photo of Rachel on the dashboard - with Cameron sprawled out asleep next to him. He could feel something distinctly human-like under his feet, looked down; Taub was lying face-down on the car floor. He shook his head, glanced back upwards and jolted. Thirteen's face was suddenly about two inches away, eyes staring into his.

"You look shit," Thirteen mused. "Then again, as shit as a Grecian god can look. Come on, might as well get up now, because that relaxant she's shot you up with will make it a lot harder soon." She turned to the car door on her side, giving it a stern look. "I don't think it wants to open, but it'll give in eventually, or I'll make it." He blinked hard a few times as she shot the door a threatening glare and gestured towards the photo frame. "This breaks window glass, you know."

" - relaxant?" Chase was starting to wonder if this was a fever dream. "You know, you might want to try turning the handle before you start smashing Cuddy's windows."

Thirteen looked at him, gobsmacked, like he'd just revealed the secret to enlightenment. "That's a really good idea." She fumbled for the handle, pulled it and stepped clumsily outside.

He watched her go, uncomprehension spinning in his mind. Although, to be honest, he'd seen far weirder from her than threatening a door. The thought of whatever liquid Cuddy had injected him with prompted him to follow her out, stepping on Taub in the process.

Cuddy was crouched by Cameron, injecting her with a syringe of clear fluid. "Hey!" Chase yelled, running over to her. "You can kill me, but don't kill my wife!" He stood in front of her with a defiant expression for a few seconds, then deflated. "Wait, this isn't going to kill me, is it?"

"Of course not." Cameron groaned sleepily. "It's sodium thiopental." Cuddy strode over to the other side of the car, where Foreman and House were both standing with identically intrigued expressions.

Chase shook his head. "Sodium thio - wait, truth serum? You've shot us up with truth serum?!"

"Yep," House replied dryly, turning to Foreman. "What are you doing here? You weren't even on duty last night. Have you just showed up to watch us humiliate ourselves?"

"Pretty much," Foreman agreed. "Plus I came back to the hospital early this morning and you were all gone, so I traced Remy's phone. Cuddy explained."

"Who's Remy?"

"I don't know," a dazed Thirteen replied, leaning on the bonnet of the car. "Hey, look, fireworks! Can you guys see? Fireworks!" She pointed emphatically at the sky, which was bright with the midday sun and remarkably non-firework-inhabited.

"Is she..." Foreman looked both concerned and amused.

"There are many adjectives I could use to end that sentence. Bisexual? Yes. Insane? Probably. Devoid of any capacity for logic? Yes, considering she's dating you." House pretended to rack his brains. "Oh, yeah. High? Yes."

"I remember," Cameron piped up, "House bet Taub five dollars that he couldn't get Chase to hug him, so Taub snuck something in his coffee, but Thirteen downed it instead."

"What was it?"

"I don't know, but from the looks of things, more likely sourced from the Colombian drug cartels than the pharmacy."

"Guys," Cuddy said, drawing them all to attention, "the auditions start in fifteen minutes. You'd better go." she gestured to the slightly downtrodden building they'd pulled up outside of.

"Or what?" House gave her a challenging look.

"House, I've just drugged you twice in the same twelve-hour period. Get your crippled ass up there." She turned her attention to the rest of the pack. "Same goes for the rest of you. Go! I'll be back to take you back to the hospital in three hours." She leaned through the back door of the car, thrust a half-awake Taub bodily into the street, slipped into the driver's seat, closed all the doors and quickly drove away with a cheeky wave.

The seven doctors just stood there for a minute, dazed. Chase felt the needle prick in his arm throb slightly. "Hey, guys?"

"What?"

"What exactly do you think the truth serum was for?"

"I'd hazard a guess," House replied slowly, "that it was to make these auditions a little more interesting."

The silence persisted. Taub looked about to go back to sleep.

"Well," Chase broke the silence, "I can think of worse ways to spend three hours. If you want to spend the rest of the day working out where the hell we are, be my guest, but judging by the empty feeling in my pocket I think she just took our phones." He walked past the other doctors and started climbing the stone staircase, soon hearing Cameron follow suit, then the rest.

"Oh, and didn't she mention something about the seven deadly sins?" Taub called faintly from near the bottom of the staircase.

Thirteen smiled wickedly. "Well, we all like our vices."

* * *

"Robert Chase."

Chase walked uncertainly out onto the small stage ahead of him, seeing a diminutive woman with a clipboard perched on a chair in the seating area above him. "Which part are you auditioning for?"

He thought to himself for a moment. After getting registered, they'd all bickered for half an hour in the conspicuously empty waiting room about their roles. He'd been a shoe-in for Lust, but Taub had just beaten him to it.

"Greed."

"Interesting." She tilted her head in a way remarkably reminiscent of House. "Tell me why you think you'd suit that role."

"I like having things." The speed of his answer and the heaviness of his limbs surprised him; the thiopental was taking effect, and what else surprised him was how little he minded. After all, he was hardly going to see her again.

"All my life. I like controlling things, knowing things are mine. At first it was toys; and God knows, even after my father left, I had plenty. I often wouldn't even play with them, I'd just survey how my bedroom floor was littered with plastic, _my_ plastic, and feel this...power." He cleared his throat, feeling slightly embarrassed, but not much.

"But soon plastic turned to people. My little sister, for instance. I loved giving her advice, protecting her, but it wasn't just for the sake of protecting her. I was her world, and that's intoxicating. I was everything to her. Until I wasn't." A bitterness flashed through his eyes. "She once caught me, downstairs - it was only the second time - but my mother was practically catatonic, and I was just there, making her pick up the empty bottle and pretend to drink from it. She wouldn't even notice it was empty. That power, that malice...it was how I kept control, but I lost her." He clenched his fists involuntarily, then released them.

"And the women. I liked that even more. Finding beautiful women and 'winning' them, sleeping with them, then turfing them out and never calling them again." He smiled in spite of himself. "And now I have the most beautiful of them all, and she's not my trophy, she's my wife. I love her. And I don't want to lose that." His face clouded over again. "She's all I have. And if I lose her, I'll have nothing. No power, no love. And that's what scares me. I need her. I need to have things."

He stopped, his words still ringing in his ears.

"Thank you, Robert." The director broke the silence. "You can go now."

He shook his head. "But - it's an audition. Surely I'm meant to act?" He wasn't sure why he cared.

"We'll get back to you. Next!"

Chase, dazed, walked back into the waiting room. The others all gave him identical quizzical looks.

"So? How was it?"

Chase sat down heavily, his words weighing on his mind.

"It was...enlightening," he finally said.


	18. Pride

**17.) Pride**

"Eric Foreman."

Foreman bolted upright. "Hang on a second, I never agreed to take part in this. I just turned up to check Thirteen wasn't being kidnapped. Which she was."

"And yet you're still here," Taub replied.

Foreman pointed to Thirteen, who was now gnawing on a chair leg pensively. "Consider it babysitting. Since right now, she has the mental age of a hyperactive three-year-old."

"This tastes like wood," came Thirteen's voice from behind the chair, small and childlike. "I like wood." The faint chewing sounds started up again.

"See! She's fine. You're just here because you want to listen in for as long as possible whilst we're all on truth serum, which, I hate to tell you, doesn't work nearly as well as in the movies," Chase proclaimed, prompting an evil grin to spread over House's face.

"Cameron?"

"Yes, House?"

"What were you and Chase doing before Cuddy found you and brought you down to her office?"

"Having sex in a janitor's closet." Cameron's eyes widened and she clamped a shaking hand over her mouth, before putting it back down.

"Whose idea was that?"

"His. Chase has a bit of a fetish about it. It happens about once a -"

"...and that's enough show-and-tell for one day," Chase announced, clamping his own hand over Cameron's mouth as a slight blush came into his tanned cheeks, and shooting House a murderous glare.

"See?" House smiled triumphantly at Chase. "Not quite so quick to dismiss the power of thiopental now, are you?"

"Shut up."

"Eric Foreman." The director's bored voice floated back into the room. "Please proceed to the stage."

"I'm not doing it," Foreman insisted.

"Wow, Foreman, I'd say you'd gone pale, but..." The doctors were all giving him identical vindictive looks, and suddenly he knew he wasn't going to get out of this.

"But - I - what part would I audition for, anyway?"

An incredulous silence filled the room.

_"Seriously?"_

"You have to ask?"

"It's practically stencilled on your forehead."

"They're going to write it on your tombstone."

"If you're that stupid, I think your IQ might have broken a few laws of physics by now -"

"All _right_," Foreman sighed, "put me out of my misery."

"Pride, you wittering imbecile."

He looked up sceptically. "What? But..."

_"Eric Foreman."_ The director's voice was downright annoyed now, and he sighed and got up from his chair, resigned to his fate.

"Go knock 'em dead, Eric!" House called out in a faux-cheery voice, waving frantically with an exaggerated grin on his face. "You can do it!"

"Who's Eric?" Thirteen murmured, stroking the chair leg absently as Foreman strode nervously onto the stage beyond the curtain.

* * *

"So, which role are you auditioning for, then?"

The director raised an eyebrow questioningly at Foreman as he stood there awkwardly, wishing he was somewhere else. "Pride, apparently."

She leant forward, interested now. "Apparently? That's a strange choice of add-on. Why don't you seem all that happy about it?"

He tensed slightly, her eyes boring like lasers into his. "I'm not the kind that personifies any kind of sin, least of all pride. I've worked my entire life to get where I am now; there's no way I could ever take it for granted. The only sin I could ever be accused of is being a workaholic, and if you're a doctor that's a way of life, not a character flaw." Foreman folded his arms defensively across his chest, daring her to contradict him.

"I disagree." Her lips didn't move.

"Wait, how did you -"

"Over here, 70% Cocoa Solids," a familiar voice slurred from behind him. He turned abruptly to see Thirteen staggering onto the stage, her pupils dilated and a drunken smile stretched across her beautiful features. "You're wrong. You seem to think that insecurity and, uh, what part are you taking again?"

"Pride. Thirteen, why don't you -"

"That's right, you think that insecurity and pride can't coexist, when it fact they often bolster each other. If you believe you can't do something, you're lie - liar - liat - liab - lie...don't help me, I can get it. Liable, that's it. You're liable to let your ego swell to the size of a small planet when you actually manage to do it."

Foreman rolled his eyes. "I really don't think you're in the best state to be carrying on an informed debate right now."

"See!" Thirteen held onto the side railing and swung downwards, holding herself up with the railing like a child on the monkey bars. "You're doing that thing again. That superiority thing. 'I really don't think' - to you, the only thing that matters is what you think. You think you're the leading authority on everything. That you're infallible. That is the definition of pride. I think. Maybe we should get a dictionary. I'll go find one." She tried to pull herself up, but her grip slipped and she landed on a heap on the floor. She laughed.

"Excuse me, but I think maybe we should take her back inside before she hurts herself." He looked pleadingly at the director.

"No, leave it. Stoned girl has a point."

"Thank you." Thirteen smiled crookedly at her. "Seriously though, Foreman, pride is perfect for you. It's all you have! It's what you are. You should really have it written somewhere." She picked herself up, examining him critically. "I can't see it on your arms. Take off your shirt."

"Remy," he started, exasperated.

"Don't you 'Remy' me. You know I'm right. I'd be even right-er if I wasn't out of my mind, but I'm still right. Pride doesn't have to be a bad thing. You should be proud of what you've accomplished, which is enough to fill four mind-numbingly boring pages of a résumé -"

"Hey! You said it was interesting when you read it!"

"I lied. I'm sleeping with you. It's a fairly good trade on your end of the deal. But anyway, you should definitely be proud of how far you've come. The only way you change it from a harmless attribute into a sin which merits the word 'Deadly' before it is how you've let it take over your life. Everything you do, everything you say, you have to weigh it up. Could this tarnish my reputation? Could this set me back a step? You have to meticulously check over every word before it leaves your mouth, lest it turn razor-sharp and puncture the gaseous giant of your ego." She thought to herself. "Then again, pride doesn't kill anyone. Could we maybe change the name from 'Seven Deadly Sins' to 'Seven Quite Bad Sins That Could Prove A Real Inconvenience To The Progression Of Your Life As A Whole But Probably Won't Actually Result In Death?'"

Silence.

"Because that would make things a lot clearer."

"I'm sure they've considered it," the director mused, "but Seven Deadly Sins has a much nicer ring to it."

"True." Thirteen's voice dropped to a whisper and she turned around, very slowly, to face Foreman. "Foreman?"

"Yes?"

"Can you see her too?"

"Yes, I can." Thirteen let out a huge sigh of relief. "Good. I mean, the velociraptor's bad enough, let alone hallucinating really hot chicks." She fell silent. "Actually, I can live with that."

"Sorry, what?"

"Velociraptor." She looked up at him earnestly, her eyes shining with huge black pupils. "It's a baby one, pink and orange, flying around up there and making the most irritating noises. I would shoot it, but I don't have a gun. Do you have one?" she called up to the director.

"Do I have a what?"

"Gun."

"Not right now, but I can make enquiries."

"Anyway," she span back round to face him again, a new fire in her eyes, "I wasn't finished character-assassinating you. And stop giving me that concerned look. I know the velociraptor's not real."

"What concerns me more is that you're hallucinating a dinosaur."

"There are things you don't know about me." Thirteen winked at him, but her eye muscles convulsed slightly and it resulted in what looked like a small face-seizure. "Anyway, yes. Pride! That's you. Definitely."

"Okay..." Foreman saw a way out, and he decided to grab it. "Yes, Thirteen, I agree. I am Pride. Can I get out of here now?"

"...But I guess I need to prove it."

He shut his eyes and contemplated slamming his head repeatedly into the nearest wall.

"What do you most like about me?"

The question caught him off guard. "I...uh...I...your intelligence, probably. And how sophisticated and successful you are."

"Aha!" Thirteen's face lit up with a dangerous smile, which looked positively unstable coupled with how black her eyes were. "Quod erat destradum!" She stopped, shaking her head slightly. "Is that how it goes?"

"Demonstrandum."

"Yes! That's it! What you like most about me is how smart and successful I am. Which both link to my achievements. Your main focus is on achievement, which is the essence of pride. And you like me because you see me as your intellectual equal, and look down on people you see as inferior. If you'd said my beauty was my best attribute, I'd have known I was wrong. But I'm not!" She sat down triumphantly on the floor next to him. "I'd do a little dance, but my coordination isn't up to much right now."

"So...because I didn't say your beauty was your best attribute, which only a conceited, shallow ass would do, I'm suddenly an arrogant, prideful ass?"

"Yep," she smiled. "But hey, don't knock shallowness 'till you've tried it. After two or three drinks - or in this case, a spiked mugful of coffee - I'm shallower than a fucking paddling pool, and it's kind of awesome."

Foreman looked desperately back at the director. "Are you going to make me stand here any longer?"

"No, I have enough. You can go." He was quite far away from her, but he thought he could see her eyes sparkle.

"Come on, Remy," he sighed, scooping her up bodily into his arms and carrying her off the stage, whilst she murmured incoherently about velociraptors and amphetamines.

* * *

"I'm out of here."

Foreman put Thirteen down gently on the nearest chair, half-heartedly putting the broken chair leg next to her, then immediately grabbed his jacket and pulled it on over his arms. "The rest of you can have a go at babysitting. I'll be in the hospital. Or my apartment. Frankly, I'd rather be in the morgue as a _cadaver_ than be here." On that note, he walked briskly out of the room and out of sight.

A stunned silence overtook the room, with only House breaking it after a minute or so with an intrigued smile.

"Well," House grinned, "I have got to see this."


	19. Lust

**21.) Lust**

"Christopher Taub."

Before the second word had even finished being said, House and Chase had both stood up and moved over to the curtain, smiles so uncharacteristically innocent they'd make anyone suspicious.

"I...don't think I requested a welcoming party."

"Our pleasure," they chorused, House pulling the curtain to one side and gesturing towards the stage. "Being there in the audience as moral support will be thanks enough," House added.

"Right. Moral support. And your motives are entirely altruistic? Nothing, of course, to do with the very real possibility of me admitting the nature of some of my copious affairs?"

"Hadn't even crossed my mind," Chase replied innoculously.

"Though, perhaps bottling up these juicy, priceless secrets has done you emotional harm. It's really for the best if you let them go."

"With witnesses present, of course."

"Which would be us."

"After all, somebody's got to relay back to everyone whether your antics merit the term 'womaniser', or just 'man-whore.'"

"I appreciate the sentiment," Taub deadpanned, "really, I do. But I think I'm going to have to do this alone. You can't be there to support me through everything." He walked towards the stage, stopping at the curtain and pressing his hand dramatically to his heart. "You'll be in my thoughts," he announced, abruptly pulling the curtain shut behind him.

* * *

"Lust," Taub muttered loudly as he walked onstage.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I'm auditioning for Lust. Though I don't particularly see the point."

"I'm still not sure I'm hearing you right." The director cocked her head towards him, hand bent comically around her ear as strands of black hair freed themselves from the constraints of her ponytail.

"Oh, I get it," he said dryly, "the irony in that the five-foot-six former plastic surgeon with an oversized nose and receding hairline is auditioning for the part of a ladies' magnet. My sides are splitting. Can I start now?"

"You're no fun," she sighed, picking up her pen. "Why so eager to get this over with? That could indicate a lot of things. Innate insecurities, general anxiety..."

"You know, you remind me of someone. And I need to leave soon because I have to pick my daughter up from playgroup."

"Daughter?" She looked even more surprised.

"Again, I'm dying of laughter. Though it fits my role quite well," Taub replied. "Don't worry, her mother has enough beauty genes for the both of us."

"Alright, let's begin," she started, her tone suddenly businesslike. "What makes you think you're suitable for Lust?"

"I have sex with a lot of women. I imagine that's kind of a requirement."

"It helps," she admitted. "So, which one was the straw that broke the camel's back?"

"What?"

"How many times did your wife catch you in bed with strangers before she kicked you out and changed the locks?"

"Wait, how did you -" Taub looked slightly scared now. God, if there's a female version of House, we're all doomed, he was thinking to himself.

"You referred to your daughter's mother as 'her mother' not 'my wife'. And you keep fiddling with your ring finger. Hence you've recently removed a long-standing wedding ring, and your daughter's either your ex-wife's or the child of whoever you cheated on her with." Her face broke into a sly smile. "I'm not quite Holmesian yet, but I get by."

"Wow. Well...I'd say all of them contributed. There wasn't really a trigger. It just got to her. Among other things."

"How many women have you slept with?" the director fired at him suddenly, a dangerously inquisitive look in her eyes.

"Hey!" Taub jolted, suddenly on the defensive. "I don't have to tell you this stuff, and I didn't realise we were thirteen and playing Truths."

"Ashamed of it? That's not the mark of someone who should be playing Lust..." She was toying with him now. It's like she knew his walls were damaged, that this substance was racing around his veins and messing with his mind.

"Fine. Fifteen, my wife being the fourth." He tried to look irritated, but a slight smile fought to upturn one of the corners of his mouth.

"Impressive. That's more like it. That pride - you see this as an achievement, however much you hate it. The mark of someone who's truly in the jaws of a vice. Yet you don't seem that much of a scumbag," the director mused, shaking her head and causing the black tendrils around her shoulders to curl and weave. (_"Thank you very much," _a sarcastic voice replied inside Taub's head.) "There must have been a trigger."

"Yes," he agreed, feeling a tiny voice start whispering frantically at him from the depths of his brain. _Don't do this, you know where it'll lead, and do you really want to relive it again? Took long enough, and ruined everything, the first time round. _Yet that strange clear liquid had made his eyes shift focus; secrets just didn't seem so...worth it anymore. "My wife was the fourth, and the fifth was different to everyone else. I'd guess she was the trigger."

"Different. Ambiguous word. Explain."

"Now you're really starting to sound like him," he murmured to himself. "Fine. I was a successful plastic surgeon, when I came into contact with a nurse. Sienna. She was doing some after-patient care on some of my patients; I was spending a lot of time with her, talking a lot when we had nothing else to do. It was easy to transition to 'coincidentally' working the same shifts, and 'by chance' both having to work overnight together. One thing led to another, I ended up screwing around with her for a few months, my partners found out, I quit plastic surgery and distanced myself from her. I loved my wife. Still do." His expression twisted. "But...I couldn't quite lose my taste for it."

"Nice story. Makes sense, and concise enough," the director smiled. "Too bad it's woefully incomplete."

"How do you know?" Taub cursed himself; he was getting sucked in, and his brain was firing maddened electrical signals at him, telling him to bolt, but he didn't much see the point. It would only prove he had something to hide, and the way she looked at him made him want to explain himself.

"Sienna," she answered simply. "If she was a meaningless fling, I wouldn't know her name now. Or how you two met. She meant something; you just don't want to admit it."

"I can't just be ashamed that I betrayed my wife?" He could feel something uncannily like a noose tightening around his throat, squeezing the resolve out of him. "That would be a fairly normal response."

"You didn't seem too ashamed before. There's something about this one. This is bringing back memories...and judging by the looks of you, all tensed and set to flee, they're bad ones."

Taub relaxed his shoulders, reddening slightly. "Nothing's special about her."

"What? So, she was just a meaningless fling?"

"Yes," he replied, trying not to grit his teeth at the 'meaningless' which he knew shouldn't be anywhere near any mentions of her. Sienna.

"Just a stress reliever? A harmless screw-around?"

"I'm sure," and now he knew he was gritting his teeth.

"An easy lay?"

"Please -"

"A simple mistake?"

"Don't -"

"Just another slut, tempting a married doctor -"

"SHUT UP! IT WASN'T LIKE THAT!" The red-hot anger in his voice hit her like a shockwave, and it took him two more seconds to realise tears were beading in his eyes, and he'd fallen straight into her trap.

_Fuck._

"Well," she finally said, "I think this merits a -"

"I fell in love with her," he interrupted viciously, not even wanting to stop himself anymore. "We would talk for hours, and she was just - we were so compatible. Her marriage had recently fallen through, and mine was still going strong, or at least I thought. We weren't looking for anything, but somehow we found it. I still loved my wife, but not - not on the same level as I loved Sienna." Taub's voice cracked slightly and he shook his head, annoyed at himself.

"I was going to tell Rachel, but I just couldn't. She - she was Rachel's best friend. And neither of us could do that to her. Shatter her like that. You have to understand," he told her pleadingly, "I still loved her. And I hadn't done anything with Sienna. Nothing. I owed her that, at least. But we knew where things were headed." He bowed his head. "I swore I'd tell her that afternoon, since I was seeing Sienna in the evening. But the words never quite came out, so I left quickly, and we ended up sleeping together."

"My partners didn't find us in a janitor's closet somewhere; I told them. I said I was going to divorce my wife, because I was in love with someone else, and that I needed to take a few days off to clear things up. That night, I went home to clear things with Rachel." A visible lump had appeared in his throat, but the director's face stayed the same; cold and clear and listening intently. "I hadn't had any messages from Sienna. So - so, I went home -" a strangled sob escaped his lips, "and she was crying her eyes out. She said Sienna had been killed. Car accident."

"I'm sorry."

Taub shot her a glare. He'd grown sick of courtesies. "So I paid off my partners and left plastic surgery. I couldn't tell Rachel; not now. Not whilst she was grieving. But I also couldn't be in the house, not when there were so many bitter memories. I internalised the grief, because there was nowhere else to put it, and spent all my evenings at work, and eventually - "

" - having sex with random and available women to distract yourself, and because you'd convinced yourself you didn't deserve your wife," the director finished for him.

"Yes." He was relieved that no tears had escaped his eyes, though the whites were now tinged pink. "I loved Rachel so much - still do - but I couldn't deal with the idea of being with her for the rest of my life, when she was my second choice. My subconscious figured cheating repeatedly would be the best way to get rid of her, but she stayed, and the guilt grew."

"What about now?"

"Well, after a few affairs, you gain a taste for it. It becomes an addiction. An escape."

Quiet fell over the two for a minute, Taub looking up at the ceiling and wishing he was somewhere else.

"I'm not sure you merit Lust," the director finally said. "For you, women are either everything or nothing. Physical appearance is only a component. For Lust, it is how the world turns. I'm not giving you the part."

"I doubt I'll cry myself to sleep," Taub muttered as he turned on his heel and quickly left the stage, the black floor scraping beneath his feet.

* * *

"How did it -"

"Bye," Taub replied hurriedly, heading for the door, but skidding to a halt when his phone rang. Dancing Queen. Rachel's. He pulled it from his pocket, flipped it open. The achingly familiar voice echoed out.

"Chris? Honey?"

Poisonous emotions, biting at his heart, his thoughts, making everything darker somehow with the bitterness.

He brought the phone to his ear. It seemed to burn.

"Hey."


	20. Wrath

**18.) Wrath**

"Allison Cameron."

Cameron looked apprehensively at House and Chase, who both remained seated, looking vaguely bored. "Huh? Taub gets his own little fan club, and I'm going in alone? If I cared, I'd be offended."

"Well, Cameron, it's difficult to know exactly how to phrase this, but -"

"You're boring," House bluntly cut him off. "Well, you in yourself are interesting, but how you tell things is boring. Plus, the only secrets in your past are likely more tear-filled and painful than tabloid-worthy, and I don't feel like having my gag reflex repeatedly stimulated." He mimed vomiting into a bucket. "No, I'm just holding out for Wilson to declare his undying love for me in the middle of the stage. I'm considering bringing popcorn."

"You'll be waiting a while, better get an extra-large popcorn bucket," Wilson replied dryly. House turned around to face him, giving him the sickliest loved-up look he could muster.

"It's okay. I can wait. We're worth it, Wilson. All we've been through...I can wait for the three little words, I know they're there. Give it time."

Wilson gave him a strange, steady stare until he dropped it. "Alright, Cameron. Go knock 'em dead with your sappy teenage angst. To be honest, you don't even need the truth serum. You'd tell her your life story in excruciating detail if she batted her eyelashes at you, drugged up or not."

"That means a lot," Cameron replied sarcastically, smiling as she got up, quickly kissed Chase and walked off through the curtain, it swishing behind her in a flourish. Chase stared after her, cheeks slightly pink from the kiss.

"I still can't believe she's your girlfriend," Thirteen muttered from her spot curled up on the floor, idly tracing the curling patterns in the carpet.

"To be honest," Chase smiled, "neither can I, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't happy about it."

"You reckon she's going to crack? Say anything stupid?" Wilson turned to House, looking mildly interested. He figured, considering he now basically had a forced day off, he might as well enjoy it. Random days off as a doctor were about as common as solar eclipses, and just as beguiling.

"Of course," House replied, twisting his cane around in his hands, "but she'd do that anyway."

* * *

"Hi," Cameron greeted the director chirpily as she took to the stage. She didn't answer, just stared at her, studying her closely. After a minute or so, it became slightly unnerving, and she shifted her weight to her other foot uncomfortably.

"Um, I'm auditioning for Wrath," Cameron added.

The director snapped out of it. "Right, sorry." She looked at her again, a confused look passing over her face. "You're sure about Wrath? I wouldn't peg you as someone on the brink of turning into the Hulk."

Cameron laughed. "Anger has many more passive variations. Besides, my vices are more the literal variety than figurative concepts. Then again, apart from sex and one experiment with amphetamines, I don't even use the literal variety much."

"Never tried amphetamines. Had a cousin on speed cut his arm off with a chainsaw, though. What are they like?"

"Exhilarating. And terrifying. You wake up with no memory whatsoever, and all that remains of the night is whatever remnants managed to stay stuck to your skin. The rest is floating in the wind and rogue Facebook photos."

"Sounds uncannily similar to alcohol."

"Yes, but if amphetamines came in liquid form we'd likely all be dead," Cameron laughed, pushing away a few fragmented memories of that night with Chase, however good it was. She preferred to think of how they were now, as opposed to the imperfections and hazed blurriness of their chance beginning.

"Does Red Bull qualify?" The director chuckled in return, her shock of black hair shaking slightly against her pale, almost translucent skin. She had an almost gothic quality about her. Perfect to direct a play on the Seven Deadly Sins, Cameron thought to herself. "Anyway, we'd best get this show on the road, otherwise your friends will start getting annoyed about the wait."

"I highly doubt they could care less, but by all means, continue."

"How are you angry?" All the chumminess had been dropped from her voice, replaced by a cut-glass, detached tone. Cameron felt slightly taken aback.

"Things have happened to me in my life that have justified a lot of pent-up anger."

"If that sentence was any more ambiguous, it would just consist of a long silence and a thoughtful look. Details, details, details," she pounded the clipboard next to her in time with her words, "that's how I carry out my work. I need to know how your life links to the role. That way, I'll be able to know if you can transfer that emotion onto the stage. If you can capture the audience, and really make them believe that you are the personification of Anger. That you are Rage incarnate."

"Okay," Cameron said uncertainly, "my first husband died of thyroid cancer. I didn't get much time to spend with him. I knew him for a few weeks, and I'd fallen in love with him as if falling down a chasm that had just appeared beneath my feet - it snuck up on me. Then he sits me down and tells me his life expectancy's gone to hell and soon enough he's going to be gone and I'm going to be falling, but it'll be for a completely different reason. This good person, this alone person - a little rogue bundle of cells, and they took him away from me. And not many people will remember him. If it wasn't for that rogue bundle of cells, he would have been able to do so much. I just don't understand why it had to be him. And I'm a doctor, you'd figure I would have come to terms with the whole 'life isn't fair' argument by now, since I see so many good people die and so many worse people recover."

By the end of the monologue, her voice had taken on the quality of a knife edge grating against sandpaper. The director was leaning so far forward in her chair she was in danger of falling out of it, a bright and eager look on her face, which she quickly tried to mask with concern.

"I'm extremely sorry. But that emotion is exactly what I need. It's raw; it's practically palpable. It's like bright red paint for an artist's canvas. What else?"

"...what do you mean, what else? I just told you my husband died of cancer. Isn't that sort of enough? Do I have to have lived through genocide as well?" Now Cameron's voice had taken on a defensive quality, which she quickly noticed and tried to rectify. "I mean, I'm sure I have other events in my life as well. It's just...that's kind of the big one."

"I'm not looking for big. I'm looking for emotions. Even if it's that you nearly beat the mailman to death once because he left your mailbox open and a squirrel got in and ate your letters. Just give me something."

"Okay," she murmured, doubts circling in her mind. Was that it? Was that all she had? "When I was sixteen, I - "

_Fucking hell. Allison, no. Don't go there. Don't do that -_

" - I had a friend who was really into principles of equality, equal rights, particularly gay rights, but she refused to come out of the closet because she was worried about the stereotypes she might experience. And I just got unbelievably, blindingly frustrated at her, because she had this principle she believed in so strongly, but she wouldn't take the actions necessary to help. And I knew she had a crush on me, so I ended up kissing her in front of a huge crowd of people and basically outing her. She never spoke to me again, but I still don't regret it because now she can commit herself to what she believes in, without holding back." Cameron took a deep breath, feeling remorse sting the hairs on the back of her neck. "I -"

"Let me finish that sentence for you," the director interrupted. "You channel your anger into positive outcomes. You use it to spur you on, to do good in the world. And that's great, for everyone else, but it deprives you of the opportunity to scream into a pillow like a normal person, because you'd feel guilty about wasting the energy. You use anger in the most useful yet screwed-up way I've seen in a while."

"I'm not a saint," Cameron laughed. "I'm just angry at everything, and if I let it out the conventional way, my pillow would be a pile of shredded rags. Everything - lying, neglect, mistakes, hypocrisy, every frustrating part of life - it just creates a red mist around me." She'd intended to keep the same light-hearted tone, but it was colder now, more biting.

"Every time I see people doing the wrong thing, no matter how small, I just want to hit them. I care far more than other people, and it turns endlessly destructive. Like House, when he doesn't care about his patients, even though they're there and they're in pain - I just want to slap him and make him live their pain, even just for a few seconds. If everything's not perfect, wrath just flows into me, my limbs and my chest stuffed full of it. I have a flaw where I think things should be as they can never be; perfect. Flawless. And it's not bloody fair that we don't live in a perfect world! And though I know it can never be one, I can't accept that, because if the world were perfect, I'd still have my husband! Or, failing that, I'd at least still be able to be in love with Chase without waiting for him to slip up, because he wouldn't!"

She stopped, breathing fast and hard. Her nails were biting into the skin on her palms. Cameron relaxed, looking up at the director, who was now watching her with interest, twirling a black lock around her finger.

The director sat there pensively, leaving Cameron with only her roller-coaster thoughts and pictures running through her mind.

"I don't think you should play Wrath. There are far too many unresolved emotional explosions rattling away inside you to limit yourself to just the one."

"Good point," Cameron agreed. The searing heat, the pent-up anger she'd been fermenting away for years, was starting to bubble to the surface. It felt like amphetamines; exhilarating, yet utterly terrifying and scarily new. An idea began to blossom like a bloodstain in her mind, and she smiled. Not her normal, caring smile. An almost vindictive smile. A self-serving smile.

"I like that smile," the director declared, prompting Cameron to run offstage, barely registering the curtain as the black fabric flowed around her and snapped back behind her feet.

* * *

"What happened, Cameron? Did you -"

Cameron walked up to House, slapped him across the face, then sat down calmly next to Chase, checking over her fingernails nonchalantly as a stunned silence overtook the room. Chase turned around very slowly, looking incredulously at his girlfriend. Him and House both spoke at exactly the same time.

"I have got to find a way to stop people doing that."

"You are so damn hot right now."

Wilson, in between House and Chase, glanced at both amusedly. "Chase, trust me, we know. And House, she has good reason. Many, actually. Probably enough to compile a list of infinite length."

"Still stings," House muttered petulantly.

"Some things do," Cameron smiled, "and bottling things up never works for long."

"I think I liked you better before you went on that stage."

"No, you didn't." Cameron's grin grew broader, barely noticing how much her hand stung.

"No, I didn't," House agreed grudgingly. "You know me too well."

"I doubt that's possible."


	21. Envy

**19.) Envy**

"James Wilson."

"All right," he sighed, hefting himself off the chair, "time to go effortlessly humiliate myself. Then again, I'm pretty sure the 'Viva Las Vegas' T-shirt has already accomplished that."

"Well, you've got nothing better to do," House smiled, "and I'm here, which automatically makes it cool."

"You're right. Prancing around on a stage is infinitely more important than my patients," Wilson snarked. "I'm still bitter about this. If it wasn't for this screwed-up friendship, I wouldn't be stuck here with a blinding headache and a questionable drug swimming around in my bloodstream."

"Oh, like it's the first time," House replied, his voice laced with a healthy dose of sarcasm. "Honourable Saint Jimmy, who refuses to let anything other than antidepressants and dangerous volumes of alcohol touch his bloodstream. Let us all bow down to his holiness."

Wilson just rolled his eyes and set off for the stage.

"I'll miss you!" House called after him as he left. He pretended to choke out a sob and rubbed his perfectly dry eyes. "It's just so traumatic when he's away…"

"I'm sure you'll survive the agonising three minutes of separation," Taub replied dryly.

"Maybe I should take your route and get a bit on the side whilst he's gone," House bit back.

Taub shot him a murderous glare. "That was a good one," Chase admitted.

"Don't encourage him, he'll only get worse."

* * *

Wilson trudged onto the stage, looking disparagingly at the slightly dingy remnants of the incomplete set. The director averted her eyes, trying (and failing) not to laugh at the state of him.

"Hi."

"Your outfit is very…stylish. You have a very distinct…look."

"Yes, it's called sleep deprivation and chloroform," Wilson deadpanned.  
"And I'll take Envy."

"Okay," she said evenly, "who are you most envious of?"

"My ex-wives, most likely."

"That's interesting. Why's that?"

"Spoken like someone who's never paid three alimonies," he sighed. "Their houses are like pawn shops. They have all my stuff, they bought it off me for a very cheap price - or for free - and to get it back I'd have to give them my left kidney and my non-existent first-born son."

"Bitter. I like it," she smiled. "Works well in the role. So, why do you think you're particularly suited for the role of Envy?"

"…I'm envious of people?"

"Good one, Sherlock. You're a genius beyond compare."

"Actually, I prefer Watson."

"Describe how you feel envy. When. Why. What it feels like. What it _tastes_ like." Her eyes had suddenly become bright, eager, inquisitive, like a young child learning about emotions for the first time. The thought crossed his mind as to whether she was an extremely curious psychopath.

"Okay," he replied, looking at her oddly, "my best friend is an ass. He is not socially unaware; he is in fact entirely aware of social rules and courtesies, he just chooses to stick his middle finger up at them and do whatever the hell he wants. I envy him that. I have to weigh up every action, every word, and what their possible effects on people will be, lest I somehow hurt someone. It's just, so, tiring. And he gets to bypass that, at the small cost of never being able to form a real relationship with anyone except me and getting punched once every few weeks. Yet I have the exact same problem with women – hence the alimonies – and I don't get the luxury of being able to lie back in my chair, pop a few pills and casually insult the universe, life and everyone, knowing I'll get away with it. Except the pills. But antidepressants aren't nearly as glamorous as painkillers."

"Antidepressants?"

Wilson mentally slapped himself. "Yes. I'm clinically depressed."

"But you're a doctor."

"Strangely enough, doctors get sick. It might also come as a revelation to you that circus clowns also get sad sometimes," he said sarcastically. "I'm sorry if I've destroyed your world view."

She looked back at him, annoyed. "I meant, doctors are supposed to have the most fulfilling job of all. Surely that'd make you happy?"

"Yeah…doesn't quite work like that. At least not after you see the first hundred perfectly decent people die under your care."

"True," she admitted, "but surely that would curb any envious tendencies you had? Realising that however badly your life was going, at least you were alive and physically well? That other people always had it worse?"

"That would make sense," Wilson said slowly. He looked as if he was going to finish the sentence, but then stopped himself. The director leaned back in her chair, resting her chin on her palm and looking at him as if she could see him clearly for the first time.

"But it doesn't for you. Wait," she gasped, "are you envious of your patients? Your _cancer_ patients?"

"No, of course -" his resolve failed him and he sighed, resigned to his fate. "Yes, I am. I've never been much good at lying. That's House's domain."

A faint flicker of recognition flitted across her eyes, but she shook her head and focussed on him. "How can you be jealous of people with cancer? They get depressing adverts, so clearly they can't have it that good."

"They get to cut through all the other misery that exists in their lives," he explained. "Like House, they no longer have to do anything else that bores or hurts them; they can do whatever they like, say whatever they like, and they have the greatest excuse in the world. Everyone drops everything for them. All they have is love, for the short time they have left. The only bad part is the treatment, the pain - and I just wouldn't do it. I'd just take the few weeks or months I had left and make them the best of my life." Wilson's words faded, and he stiffened, realising how they sounded.

"So...in some ways, you think people with cancer are lucky?"

"God, no," Wilson said, sounding far more tired than he had in a while. "I just think everyone else is extremely unlucky, and life goes to hell after about two decades."

"Spoken like a true pessimist."

He brought his hand to his forehead and sighed again. "House must be getting to me. And the drugs, of course."

The director thought about enquiring about 'the drugs', but judging by the look of that brunette talking about velociraptors and guns, she decided against it. "Who else are you jealous of?"

Wilson thought to himself. The green-eyed monster that had set up camp inside his chest was stirring in its cage. "Every person out there in that waiting room, for one."

"Seriously? I've had them in here, and none of them appear to have their lives in great shape right now."

"Well, Chase and Cameron, for one," he interrupted her, as if he hadn't heard what she'd said, he'd been caught up too much in his own thoughts. "But not even because they're in love - I've had that, three times over - it's because they're equal in their relationship. With all of my ex-wives, and even with House, I've always been the one putting all the work in, and then no matter how hard I try I can't manage and the walls fall down around me. I'm just one man," he said, almost desperately. "The main reason House is still here - and will likely always be here - is because we work best when I give up trying to fix things and just accept that we are the perfect level of screwed up. But he's the only one who has standards that low." Wilson ran his hand exasperatedly through his hair, memories and bitter-tasting jealousy misting in his eyes and lingering on his tongue.

"Cameron and Chase - they're equal. Sure, Chase chased her down," he stopped for a second. "Wow, that irony took a while to sink in. But once they started their relationship, they've always since compromised. I can't do that! I compromise for other people, they just sit there. It's almost like I can't even let them do things for me, because then I'd owe them somehow. Or maybe I don't even know what I want any more. They do. That's why they work. But such a big part of me has become acclimatised to wanting whatever other people want, so that's what I do. And eventually the tiny selfish part of me that remains starts complaining and I get bitter. Endlessly bitter." Wilson's face had contorted into a scowl, both at the world and at himself. "Maybe House is right. Maybe I have sold my soul."

"I hope you got a good price for it."

"Not really. I got a pinewood desk, a maverick leech of a best friend and a weekly prescription."

"Ouch," she replied unhelpfully. "Maybe you could get a store return."

"I think Beelzebub's warranty on souls expires after thirty days. It's been around...let's see...oh yes, pretty much forever."

"Tough break. I hope the prescription's good, though."

"It's complicated." He frowned, as if thinking about something he didn't want to be thinking about. "I told House I wouldn't tell him about the pills because it was personal. But it was more than that. If I talked to him about what the pills do for me, I'd have to explain what life is like without them, and that I've been on them since a few months after we met. The only reason he found out is because I changed prescription."

"What's life like on the pills?"

"Normal. Colours aren't any brighter and my patients still die on a far too regular basis, but apart from that, life is normal. Clear. It makes sense."

"What about without them?"

"Think Fifty Shades of Grey, as in the literal colour hues." A few fairly disturbing thoughts ran through his mind and he shuddered. "Everything's dull and dark and miserable. The last time House came into my office when I was off my medication, I sent him out."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want him to see me like that. Weak, pessimistic, feeling like I wanted to cut out my life as if it were a tumour, encompassing everything. And also, I didn't want him to realise that when I'm not on my medication, I see things just as darkly as he does when he's in pain. If not worse. If he knew I was as dependent on pills as he is..." Wilson gulped, a lump stuck stubbornly in his throat, "he'd break. He's supposed to be the fragile one. Not me."

"You can both be fragile. There's no rules against -"

" - you don't know House," he cut her off. "He can't deal with his best friend being broken as well. And I don't want him to. I have other people to look at me sympathetically when I'm hurting. He's there to make jokes and take my mind off it. Which works a lot better." His voice had become choked up now, and he squeezed his eyes shut, willing any tears back.

"Hey, are you -"

"I'm sorry, I don't - I have to go." Wilson looked around agitatedly, before bolting through the curtain again, it swiftly floating closed again before her lips could even form a "Wait."

* * *

"Wilson!" House exclaimed. "Thank God you're back. As much as I hate thanking Mr. Non-Existent up there." He glanced pointedly up at the ceiling then returned his gaze to Wilson. "I hope the separation was as painful for you as it was for me. What did they make you talk about? Anything juicy that I can sell on the black market?"

"No, nothing really," he lied effortlessly, feeling a wisp of guilt stick in his lungs like cigarette smoke. He wanted to cough. Or to scream.

House looked at him again, staring, and this time concern flashed in his eyes, but he didn't show anything. "I knew you'd be just as boring on truth serum as you are normally," he sighed. "I bet if they put you on LSD, you'd still care for your hallucinations so much they'd run off just to get away from it."

"More than likely," he replied, but his slightly red eyes said something else.

_"Thank you."_

House just smiled, and Wilson resolved that he would tell him, soon.

Then again, he'd said that twenty years ago.


	22. Gluttony

**20.) Gluttony**

"Remy Hadley."

Everyone turned to look at Thirteen, who was sitting contently on the floor, staring intently at her chair leg as if it held the secrets to life, the universe and everything. All except for House, that is, who was staring just as intently at the ceiling, a puzzled look on his face.

Wilson noticed House's confusion and rolled his eyes. "Seriously, House? It's been a year, and you still haven't learnt Thirteen's name?"

"Of course I learned it. The fact that my brain then promptly forgot it because it was irrelevant is by no means my fault." Yet the confusion remained, and he kept his gaze on the cracks winding through the ceiling paint, muttering something that almost sounded like, "It just doesn't make any sense..."

But that was just House, and Wilson took no notice.

"Thirteen? I think you have to go up now..." Chase told her gently. She moved her head to stare straight into his eyes, and he automatically recoiled; her expression was scarily spaced-out and her eyes huge, almost entirely encompassed by shining black pupils, like polished jet stones embedded in her skin. He wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to hug or kill him, but he quickly thanked his lucky stars that Taub had spiked the wrong coffee.

"Okay," she finally smiled, after staring at him for just long enough to give him a minor heart attack. She bounced up onto the balls of her feet agilely, the coordination issues of earlier strangely disappeared, and sauntered happily out of the room. Six pairs of eyes tracked her as she left. (Stoned or not stoned, she tended to have that effect on most things with a pulse.)

"See?" Chase put his arm lovingly around Cameron. "That is why I will always pick you over her. She's terrifying!"

Cameron slowly turned around, shooting him a look that was nothing short of bloodcurdling. "You want to rephrase that?"

"Desperately."

"Go ahead."

"I will always pick you over her, because even though she is absolutely stunning and sophisticated and about three stages past sexy, she is terrifying, and you are also those things, and I already love you anyway." He smiled reassuringly at her, but it waned when her death stare didn't relent. "Wait, I screwed that one up. Let me try again -"

"Chase?"

"Yes, my love?"

"Shut up."

* * *

The director was jotting a few random notes on her clipboard, when she noticed a flash of chestnut and peered over the top of it. Her heart both sank and raced when she saw it was the brunette. Well, this should be fun, even if it does result in her trying to eat my set.

"Any more velociraptors?"

"Of course not," Thirteen eyed her strangely. "I killed that one ages ago. Didn't you see?"

"Must have missed it."

Her eyes took on a glassy look again and she murmured something that the director could have sworn was, "Tasted just like chicken." Then she snapped out of it, meeting the director's eyes. "Sorry I'm like this."

"It's all right."

"I'm not in my right mind right now."

"I noticed."

"Something's changing the blood flow in my brain. I say 'something' because if I knew its name, I wouldn't be here, I'd be negotiating a price on a street corner in Bogotà. One second I don't understand anything, then my vision's as if through the bottom of a shot glass, then it comes back even sharper than usual but my verbal filter goes to hell. For instance, you're seriously hot, which I likely shouldn't be saying but I don't really care, and I can see well enough to know that you've been doodling a cat on that clipboard for the past half hour."

The director blushed, pushing the clipboard semi-discreetly to one side.

"I just hope to God it doesn't go for my hypothalamus." She shuddered slightly, prompting intrigue to flicker in the director's eyes.

"Why?"

"Don't you know?"

"You're the doctor, explain."

"There's four possible things that could happen if it goes for my hypothalamus: I fall asleep near-instantly; I get so anxious and paranoid that I start hyperventilating then collapse into a panicked heap; I get hungry enough to try and eat you; or my sex drive shoots up about 100%, so...yeah, probably a pretty similar eventuality to the third one."

The director did her best to ignore that last comment. "I'll order in a pillow, a paper bag, a Big Mac and a few willing volunteers."

"You're too kind."

"Sounds like a pretty little game of Russian Roulette you've got going on in your head there. Who did this to you?"

"A bet. I wasn't taking part, but I think I still managed to lose." Thirteen cocked her head and smiled an odd little smile. "You know, I don't think I'd mind the fourth eventuality that much."

"Sorry, I don't swing that way. Not for less than a sizeable fee, anyway."

"That's a shame. I'm pretty sure if I recruited you, I'd get enough credits from the Both-Ways Bureau to buy a new car. Seriously."

"Really?"

"Think of it this way; you look just like my ex-girlfriend, but the slightly emo version. And my ex-girlfriend is currently working in Paris as a supermodel. Your cheekbones are sharper than surgical scalpels, for God's sake, and though I don't care what colour your eyes are – let's face it, they're normally not my visual point of interest – I'm sure they're suitably bright and alluring to write some kind of poetry about them. Then again, I'm going to seriously hope that your personality in no way resembles hers, or I may have to kill you and stick your head on a pike."

Some would be freaked out, the director thought, but I've never really been one of them. Situations just happen, and you deal with them with a smile and a witty throwaway. In this case, she liked the situation. "I'm flattered."

"It's okay, because I'm in love with someone anyway," she grinned mischieviously. "And I'm not going to tell you who, because secrets are interesting. Games are fun. That's what I do with my colleagues. I wrap them in my little labyrinth of misleading half-truths and watch them stumble around. Then I distract them with something that's actually true, and stun them for long enough to seal off all the exits. People only get out when I want them to. Which is rare to the point of near non-existence."

"You're being very truthful today."

"How would you know?" The stare Thirteen shot her seemed like it pierced right through her soul into the fabric of the chair behind. "And it doesn't matter what I tell you. I'm high, so I'm not credible, and will never see you again, most likely. Plus, your curiosity is irresistible."

The director blushed pink again, shook her head and picked up the clipboard, the detailed cat drawing settled on the page as if mocking her. "So, anyway, what part do you want to audition for?"

Thirteen shot her a look that could only be described as "Duh."

"Right, that'd be Gluttony then." She pretended to scrawl on the clipboard with her pen, which she hadn't even clicked on, and she knew Thirteen could tell. "So, what parts of your personality do you think suit the role of -"

" - oh, cut the crap," Thirteen laughed, high and melodic and slicing through the air like a knife, ricocheting erratically off the walls. "All the things you could do with a showcased girl on your stage whose brain is going haywire, and you choose to follow protocol? You looked more interesting than that from over there," she pointed to the curtain.

She had a point. "Fine." She tried to look annoyed, but soon that little smile and the tempting exhilaration of spinning in this enigma's wake took over her. "What are you scared of?"

Thirteen shrugged. "Fear."

"Who do you love?"

"Someone who can never know it."

"Who do you like?'

"People who don't hide, or people who do it well."

"In that room out there, who would you have sex with?"

"Anything between two of them and all of them, depending on the weather and my horoscope."

"If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?"

"This stage." Thirteen thought for a second. "Actually, maybe with you in the latter stages of undress, but still on this stage."

The director laughed. "Get out your chequebook and we'll talk. What do you think the meaning of life is?"

"Seriously? We've hit philosophy now? I'm stoned! All I can see right now is you and your clipboard cat and a cacophony of shimmering lights and possibly a talking orangutan, I'm not in much state to carry on a debate."

"Humour me."

"Okay...There is no bigger meaning. We live, we dance, we smile, we die. The only shard of meaning we can derive from existence is the explosions that emotions and racing chemicals bring, so we need to make that happen as much as possible. Hence I'm here, which is making things burst and flash, instead of asleep in that waiting room, where all is still and dark. Oh, and screwing with people. That too."

"Favourite book?"

"So we've leapt from philosophy to a dating site questionnaire?"

"You could have answered it three times over by now..."

"Lord of The Flies."

"Bloodthirsty. I like it. Why?"

"Things would be so much simpler if humanity stopped bottling up its dark side and embraced the fact that we are, essentially, savage animals with a good paint job and expert internalisation."

"Are you like Gluttony in any ways other than the obvious?"

"Hmm...excessive drinking, more than occasional drug use, and binging on emotional highs and superlatively unusual mental states in every way from draining a pint of my own blood to staying awake for three days straight. But hey, at least I don't eat carbs." Her expression was wickedly knowledgeable. "Gluttony is this face, just about three dress-sizes up on the body."

"An entity you love?"

"Wind. The poetic variety, not the methane one. Think of it this way; out of a still scene and a painted sky, some almost inexplicable marriage of oxygen and kinesthesia flies in currents, behind a sparrow's wings or the delicate curve of the corpses of autumn leaves, and then when it chooses to blast into you out of anything that it could have done and graces your hair with its freezing breath and traces the contours of your spine before it curls away again. It could have become a thread of a tornado or a circling church-spire in the structure of a cyclone, but instead it picked you - and people think it's an inconvenience. Nothing shows off so spectacularly the stupidity and close-mindedness of human nature."

"What about one you despise?"

"Luck."

"Some might tire of repeating this word, but I'm definitely not one of them; why?"

"By most ordinary definitions, I have it in spades -"

"-wouldn't argue with you there -"

"-yet I have a nerve-gas-grenade with its hooks into my DNA, the timer set for ten years, fifteen at the most. I can never know exactly. I think I'm glad of that."

"I'm sorry."

"Oh, shut up. Sympathy's the one thing I get and it's one of the many things I don't need. I need a cure or a vodka bottle. Next question."

"Are you happy?"

"Sometimes."

"Are you depressed?"

"No, I'm dying."

"Sometimes the two coexist. Sometimes there's even causation involved."

"I'm not depressed, because I don't want my life to end. I want it to be prolonged for as long as possible in this terrifyingly fast-moving stasis between me and meltdown-time."

"Do you have a family?"

"Used to. Can I ask you a question?"

"Fire away, I've got nowhere to be. Except if it involves the chequebook."

"When you look at me, from your place in that chair up there, what do you see? Do you see Gluttony?"

"I see a thin coating of polished gluttony, but it's weak and a cover-up. Underneath I see a pretty, lucky, damaged girl who hates the mundane and spends her life trying to be in a state as far from it as possible. Who's self-destructive to an extent, but can't quite go all the way through with it because, at her core, even though it's thrown an unimaginable amount of crap at her, she loves life."

"Wow." Thirteen pondered for a minute, then cleared her expression to an unreadable canvas. Well, it was nice sharing fever dreams and light shows with you," she said with a grin, at once abruptly turning on her heel and heading for the exit.

"You too, stoned doctor girl," the director called after her.

Thirteen suddenly stopped, facing the curtain, but didn't turn around. "Actually, I just have the one question."

"Ask away."

"How do you know I'm a doctor?"

Stunned silence. "I, well - uh -"

"That's what I thought," Thirteen replied serenely, before the curtain wrapped around her wrist and pulled her out of sight in a flurry of black silk, as quickly as she came.


	23. Sloth

**Conclusion to the Vices series. **:)

**Kara x**

* * *

**22.) Sloth**

"Gregory House." The voice over the intercom was smooth and calm, and House had a flash of recognition, but from where, he couldn't tell. It was starting to bug him.

Everyone smiled vindictively, unanimous in the opinion that House should have his turn to suffer. "Time to go and get your comeuppance, House," Wilson said with a barely repressed laugh.

"You act as if I've done something wrong! Yes, of course I'm secretly paying Cuddy, my sworn arch-nemesis, to drug my fellows in the middle of an interesting case and make us all sit here for hours, boring me senseless in the process. Then, to have you all spill your guts onstage, even though I'm out here and you'd all clobber me to death with my own cane if I tried to sneak in and listen. And I obviously sedated myself in order to make the whole scam seem more realistic. Sounds exactly like something I would do. You're a veritable genius, Wilson." His voice was dripping with sarcasm, the acidic meaning so prevalent in his words that the consonants burned.

"Sedation makes you crabby," Chase noted. "Even by your standards."

"If you hadn't kept everyone up working for four days, we wouldn't be here. Hence, your fault. Hence, the gateway to hell awaits," Cameron walked over to the curtain and yanked it aside theatrically, trying to keep a straight face and failing miserably. "Fear thy judgement."

"Yeah, like I'm going to tell her about the details of my private life, like my hidden, passionate desire for someone I will not name, but who rhymes with Bilson. Oh, damn it!" He smacked himself in the head dramatically. "It looks like my secret has been revealed. I don't know how I'm going to live this down." He shot them all a withering look, then limped through onto the stage.

Truth be told, he was interested now. And things were starting to slot into place...but the face would be what told him everything.

* * *

"House."

The spectre crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair, fixing him with that familiar stare. "It's been a while."

"Maya Tennyson. Bet myself ten dollars it would be you." He stopped for a second, pretending to look puzzled. "Not sure how the payment works for that, but I know at least one of my hemispheres is a genius."

"You look different."

"A grenade blast's going to do that," he said, twirling his cane around in his hands and matching her stare with a contemplative gaze.

Her eyes widened. "Seriously? I'm so -"

"- I'm kidding, Maya. Explosions sound so much more glamorous than simple blood clots. So, why are you here?"

"Bastard." Her expression, her posture - everything screamed defensive, guarded. He deserved that. And probably more, but he knew from experience that she had a wicked bitch-slap and he was glad of the distance between them.

"Please, I don't do well with compliments. What are you doing here?"

"Directing a play." She gestured to the incomplete set scattered around. "Your deductive reasoning skills aren't what they used to be."

He ignored the jibe. "How long's it been?"

"You don't remember?"

"That last day's not one I'd much like to have on my calendar."

Her eyes flashed, the traces of that familiar anger floating back. "Thirty-two years."

"Would a 'sorry' now be too late?"

"Yes. By a long shot."

"I'm sorry."

"Past its expiration date."

"I know, but I'm still sorry."

"Why?"

"I broke you."

She laughed, but there was no humour in it. "Don't flatter yourself, House. I was broken long before you happened."

* * *

_"Greg, are you sure you want to go through with this?"_

_The ruffled, lanky teenager crouched beside her turned momentarily from his binoculars to shoot her a Look. She'd long since learned that it meant enough to merit a capital letter. "No, Maya, I've been planning it for two months straight because I want to cancel it two minutes before showtime. Don't use me to cover your own anxiety, damn it."_

_"If we get found out -"_

_"We won't," he replied reassuringly. "Our tracks are practically concreted over. Besides, I don't care even if I do get caught. An ice bath? The belt? None of it matters. He's made your life a misery for three years and he's not doing it a day longer." House had put on a brave voice, but that tell-tale wobble over 'belt' made him seem even braver._

_He returned to staring through his binoculars, Maya following his gaze. Her short shock of black hair was madly tangled around leaves and bits of twig that had caught on it as she'd crawled into the hollow hedge they were currently residing in; her tracksuit was stained with dirt and the occasional bloodstain, and her normally icily pale complexion was reddened and warm with the excitement and nervousness. Her eyes itched with the pollen, but the stunningly green depths were somehow still alight and sparkling. House did this to her, every time. From the second he'd accosted her, due to sheer boredom and that she 'looked like the kind of outcast that's desperate enough to jump off rooftops', right up to the last steps of this elaborate plot._

_She was a fifteen-year-old military brat with a dysfunctional family and a left arm that didn't bend right, but here she felt...not normal, but the beautiful opposite of it. Like she was abnormal enough to fit in. With Gregory House, of all people; the shadow on the outskirts. The Holmesian figure, obsessed with mysteries and incompleteness._

_And when she'd casually slipped into the conversation that her older stepbrother was making fun of her, he'd grilled her mercilessly until she'd admitted the extent of it - that he'd been ripping her to shreds emotionally for years, stemming from a sexual proposition that, when refused, had prompted him to shatter her left elbow - and he'd seemed to burn before her eyes, anger so potent that it radiated from his skin and scorched through the seas in his eyes. He cared enough to burn. And 'care' was not something people usually associated with quiet, broken little Maya Tennyson. It had used to be sugar-sweet pity, until she'd lashed out and splintered bone herself; now all she got was endless cold and distance. But not here. Not now. It tasted electric._

_"Maya, get the trigger ready, he's approaching." He quickly turned back, flashed her that gorgeously crooked smile, then focussed intently on the binoculars. "Three...two...one...FIRE!"_

_At that instant, her thumb came down on the bottlecap button. For a sinking split second, nothing happened. Then, the elaborate series of ropes and pulleys they'd organised in the trees above flipped into action, and it was a mere three-tenths of a second before a hammer drove wickedly into the side of his thick skull, stunning him; then a balloon full of a weakly acidic liquid deployed into his face, sending the equivalent of pepper spray into his eyes. He screamed and dropped to the floor, writhing in agony._

_"IT WORKED!" Every stored fragment of emotion she'd contained for the past three years seemed to be dissipating, joy flowing like honey into her veins. "God, House, I love you so much!" Before her brain even registered it, she twisted his head around to face her and kissed him full on the lips._

_For a second, all was bliss. Until reality kicked back in._

_"What the hell!" House ripped himself away, recoiling backwards. "Maya? Was that all this was about?"_

_Shock hit Maya squarely in the chest, her beautiful features frozen. "I - not at first - I - but -"_

_"I can't believe this," House seethed. "I trusted you, and all this time, you've just wanted to get into my pants -"_

_"No!" Tears beaded up behind her eyes. "It's just that, of all people, you cared about me, you did this for me, and we work together, and I thought - I just thought -" The stupidity of her thoughts was dawning on her, and she bit back a sob. "I thought I could be -"_

_"What? My girlfriend?" He laughed mirthlessly, spitefully. "A little girl like you, all bones and pretty eyes? Do you really think I work like that? I don't love, Maya, I explained the rules, but what, did you think you could change me? Heal my pathetic broken heart and unearth the vulnerable soul beneath? There's nothing, Maya, inside the concrete is just more concrete."_

_"No."_

_"What then?" His face was bitter and twisted. "What the hell do you want from me?"_

_"I could be your Watson, House," Maya muttered quietly, stinging tears tracking down her cheeks. "Holmes and Watson needed each other; bettered each other. We could be like that. I - I love -"_

_"I work alone," House bit back savagely. "I don't need a common freak as a tag-along." The second the words had slipped out, he knew in his heart he'd made a terrible mistake._

_"You - you what?" She abruptly stopped crying, blank from shock. "Of all things - you swore you'd never use that word -"_

_"- I didn't mean it, Maya -" Now he was panicking; the tides had turned and he was desperately scrabbling for a hold; this tiny nymph he'd found hidden in the ether was the most important thing in his life, and he'd just killed it._

_"I'll spare you the indignity of having me here," she snarled viciously, her vitriol so malicious it nearly made his heart stop. "But if you want to be alone, House, congratulations - now you are, and so you always will be!"_

_With that, she crawled out, his protests dying on his lips, and strode off, eyes burning. His lips still throbbed from the kiss. Suddenly, he realised he would've killed for it to last a few seconds longer._

_He never saw her again._

* * *

"Maya, what's the name of this play?"

The question caught her slightly off guard. "Vices and Vindication. It's based on a line from an article I read in the paper. Are you auditioning for a part?"

"It was going to be Sloth. But I've slept enough." He smiled crookedly. "Give me the tape recorder."

If she could go any paler than her normal complexion, she managed it. "What?"

"Your elbow's damaged. You don't read the paper; you can't turn the pages - I can remember you never used to read books, and the stories you wrote you kept in your head because it hurt you too much to write them down. This set is left over from the last play to perform here. Cuddy taught you that response and what to answer to a few fundamental questions. My fellows have been spilling out secrets and forgotten lies right here on this stage, due to a tricky little drug Cuddy slipped them, and I'd imagine you've been tasked to collect them. To write them down, I'd hazard, but you didn't want to risk the fee she's paying by informing her of your writing difficulties, so you scribbled over a pre-drawn cat with your non-dominant hand as a distraction and brought along a tape recorder instead. I'd like it, please."

Silence. She stared at him, awed. Her expression told him all he needed to know.

"You really haven't changed a bit, have you?" She sighed, reaching into her pocket and taking out the slim, incriminating device. She tossed it across the room; he knocked it out of the air with his cane and bent down with a grunt, scooping it up. Inwardly she wanted to glare at him, but she couldn't quite do it. After all, this was just House.

"I could say the same." House couldn't bring himself to break his gaze and walk away. Staring into those achingly familiar green eyes, with that glow of life and remnants of joy just visible underneath the exoskeleton - it felt like she knew what it was like to be him. "You still look like Dracula's granddaughter. That power complex treating you well?"

"Brilliantly."

"I'm assuming Cuddy's paying you handsomely."

"She would have, if I'd given her that recorder. Useful blackmail material, I believe she described it as."

"We both know you didn't take her offer just for the paycheck."

"No," she admitted. "Seeing you again was an attractive prospect. I had to know...well, you're you. I don't have to spell it out."

"Verdict?"

"You never leave quietly, House; you're practically incapable of it. I see your shadow whenever the wires cross the right way in my mind; it's the only reason I'm anything like you, and why you'll never go completely. But I saw Cuddy's face when she talked about you. The mark you've left - don't ask me how, you have a talent for it - is bright enough for me to take the hint."

House sighed, looking slightly disappointed. "Not even up for one night to make a couple new memories?"

Maya laughed, with far less bitterness in it than he probably deserved. "Sorry to miss my chance to massage your ego, but I leave tomorrow."

"Even better." She wasn't sure if he was joking, and decided not to second-guess him. That with House was suicide. Which she knew.

"The bins are out back, House. Go."

Now he definitely looked disappointed, and a shot of exhilaration bolted through her chest. "Goodbye, Maya. Have a nice life."

"You too."

Without another word, he stepped outside, his shadow lingering.

* * *

For a few minutes, he contemplated throwing the tape recorder straight into the bin, but after a moment of thought he just slipped it into his pocket and kept walking.

Everyone has secrets, and everyone makes mistakes, he thought to himself, a pang of guilt at the imprint of Maya's face in his vision.

The trick is simple;

_Never tell._


	24. Rainbow

**27.) Rainbow**

Panic blossomed, heated, in House's chest as he hurried down corridor after corridor, neck twisting back and forth as he checked through every door he passed, his thigh screaming out for relief. He delved deeper into the passageways, glancing beneath tables, at light fixtures, praying for familiar brown eyes and the Wilson attached to them to suddenly appear out of nowhere. But he didn't, and House ended back up at where he began, pounding the elevator button frustratedly and crossing out floors in his mind.

It had been the voice.

Three days, and counting, since he last spoke to James Wilson. A momentary conversation, something about the patient, or life, or cynicism, or something else he didn't remember but he'd been distracted anyway - because of the voice. Sure, Wilson had seemed off, somehow, but normally that wouldn't merit a second glance; Wilson's an oncologist, it was probably a dead patient. But the voice...his voice was stilted, cold, and there was this one inflection on a particular word where he seemed about to break into sobbing. It was the same voice he'd used for three months after Amber died.

And God knows, if that happened again...

He wasn't at home, or at his parents'; Cameron wasn't hiding him away, and nobody else would. Not in his office, or in the lobby, or camping out in a clinic room. House had checked every. Damn. Floor. Either he was in one of the floors below ground level or...

No, not 'or'. He didn't like the repercussions of 'or'.

A bony finger jabbed at the button, continually pressing it to distract himself even after the elevator doors had closed. Even dead patients didn't have this effect on him. Dead family member? Wait, that would make him upset, obviously, but there's no reason he wouldn't have told him that...right? His mind pedalled desperately through the past few days. Had he done something wrong? He must have done something wrong. A flippant word, a 'witty' comment that had struck a raw nerve...God, it was at times like this when he hated himself as much as any clinic patient with the IQ of a developmentally challenged shrub.

The elevator dinged, and he stepped out, trying to ignore the tell-tale shaking of his cane with his trembling wrists. But he didn't try and tell himself he was overreacting. No, he knew the voice. This was big. Terrifyingly big.

He rammed into random doors with his shoulder, pushing himself through blurring corridors, not even entirely sure where he was until he hit a familiar door; the one to the morgue. Okay, this was kind of worst-case scenario, House's rationality reasoned, but the masochist self-hating section still forced the door open, and he stepped inside - straight into what he was looking for.

Wilson was inside the morgue (thankfully, he looked remarkably not-dead and not quite decomposing enough to be a reawakened zombie), leaning against the sink, his eyes red from crying and his fists clenched tightly, held stiffly against his sides. His head was bowed, stare firmly directed at his shoes, avoiding everything. That familiar pang of pain hit his heart and he ran over as best he could, stabbing pains ricocheting up his leg.

"Wilson?"

Wilson looked up, unsurprised to see House, and gave him a reassuring smile. "It's okay, nobody's died."

"It's not okay, obviously. Where have you been?"

The concern and barely veiled care in his voice softened Wilson slightly. "Down here, most of the time. Trieger's got glandular fever so they're transferring all the bodies to Princeton General for the next week. This place is as still and quiet as the dead, ironically. I've been sleeping down here, working things out."

"Working what out?" House instantly regretted it, because he could see Wilson shutting off before his eyes; squeezing his eyelids shut, clenching his teeth, looking like a tensed brick in a dam fighting off a rushing tsunami.

"I don't want to tell you."

"Wilson..." Discomfort stirred in House's stomach; he'd dealt in insensitivity for so long, and normally it worked well with Wilson, but now he was scared the wrong choice of word would set him off - the ground had shifted from flagged stone to booby-trapped eggshells. But now he knew he had to put his fear aside. "It's been long enough for you to know you can basically tell me anything. Another ex-wife? I'll get your high-score engraved on a plaque. Set fire to your house? You can stay at my place; hope you like 3am wake-up calls from a certain expert pianist. Murdered somebody? I'm sure there's space under the floorboards somewhere...Come on, even if you've hooked up with Cuddy I'll eventually be able to forgive you. Of course, I'd have to punch you first, and dunk you in acid to decontaminate you, but then all shalt be forgiven, and your skeleton and I will go and see a movie together."

Wilson laughed chokily, in spite of himself. "It's not any of those things, and it's very different to what you're thinking, but thank you."

"Are you going to tell me what it is?"

No answer.

"Playing hard to get, are we? Fine. Let's try Charades. First word...second syllable...anything? TV show? Movie? Maybe act it out; I'm pretty good at guessing. Could I have the first letter? What does it rhyme with?" Wilson let out something that sounded like a stifled cry and House's throat tightened. "Alright, the English language isn't our strong point at the moment. French? Portuguese? Zulu? I can get in a translator for that African language where people communicate only in clicks, it's pretty cool...how about Morse Code? Semaphore? If you want, I'll stand really far away and you can send smoke signals. A cipher? An encrypted message? Tell me."

"I can't. It's just - it's way too personal."

House laughed. "Wilson, I think we're about three stages past 'personal' now. I know everything about you; from how your brain works, to the name of your antidepressant prescription - which, by the way, sells remarkably well on the black market at the moment - to the exact porn movie you starred in in college -"

"-we've been through this; he re-edited it -"

"-see, I also know how to distract you. Come on. I need to know what's wrong, because damn it, Wilson, I want to help you. You look almost like you did when Amber died, and I care too damn much about you for a replay of that. And you know me well enough to know that that word, the four letter 'c' word, is a big deal for me."

Wilson sighed, rubbing his aching eyes endearingly, like an exhausted child. He thought hard, then stood up, shakily walking towards the nearest cupboard and locking himself inside. Before House could protest, he then neatly unlocked the door and walked back out.

"...and the point of that was?"

"It was an illustration," Wilson replied weakly, now visibly pale and shaking.

"Wait..." House's eyes widened to about twice their normal size, so much so that he looked vaguely stoned for a second. "You don't mean..."

"Bingo."

"You're secretly the cupboard goblin that's been chewing holes in my shirts for nearly ten years? Well, I can't say I'm entirely pleased, but I'm sure we can work through it."

"Yes, House, very funny. What I meant to say is -"

"You're gay?" A stunned silence took over the room, as Wilson's gaze became fixed on the door, his muscles contracting, poised to run.

"Yes."

House stopped, a contemplative look crossing his face, then let out a short, sharp laugh. "Wilson, did you really think it wasn't obvious?"

Wilson's mouth dropped open. "Wait, what?"

"You love musicals and cooking, you're three times divorced, and you spend every waking moment with me. Seriously, you're a rainbow flag and a few rhinestones away from a caricature."

"Really?"

"Yep. Anyway, how did you think I'd react?" Hurt suddenly glowed in the blue of his irises. "Badly enough to justify hiding out down here?"

Wilson shook his head, so vigorously he nearly whacked his temple into the nearby cabinet. "No. Definitely not. That's not why I'm here."

"Why, then?"

He bit his lip. "I was...interrupted."

"Explain."

"A patient barged into my room, while I was in there with..."

"Rent boy?"

_"House!"_ Wilson's face turned the colour of a tomato and he averted his gaze.

"I'm just screwing with you. See, all is normal." He paused for a second. "Actually, maybe we should steer away from 'screw' from now on..."

"Good idea," Wilson laughed half-heartedly. "No, he walked in on me, for want of a better term, 'making out' with the doctor I've been seeing for the past month."

House nodded, sending a warmth through Wilson in how there was no trace of any hate or discomfort in his expression. "Yes, you mentioned her...well, him. Guess I've lost that bet as to whether it was the hot nurse in Radiology."

"I'll let the $50 slide, since I sort of cheated," Wilson smiled ruefully. "So, the patient walked in on us, stopped dead, with the door right open and us in a...compromising position. And I could see people looking. Including a certain dark-haired Filipino fellow of yours who probably had no idea you didn't know I was gay."

"Well, that could be anyone. You'll have to give me a few more clues."

Wilson half-smiled, but his gaze still flitted to the door once every thirty seconds or so."I was terrified she'd bring it up and you'd feel betrayed, or worse..."

"...that I'd be an insensitive jerk about it? Yeah, kind of my trademark."

"I'm sorry. I should've known you'd be fine about it. But I just got this irrational fear - well, not entirely irrational - so I hid out down here. I figured by the time you found me, if she had told you, the initial shock would've died down."

"What's his name?"

That caught him off guard, so House repeated. "What's the name of your new, well, acquaintance that I can stalk, analyse to death and likely leave emotionally traumatised?"

"Robert Chase."

House stopped dead, genuine shock freezing his expression. A moment passed, then Wilson laughed the loudest, longest laugh he had in a long time. "Oh my God, that was brilliant. Your face..."

"You bastard."

"Not such a bad liar now, am I?"

"No, that was good," House admitted grudgingly, smiling. "Seriously, who is it?"

"Lane Thea. He's an -"

"Oncology attending, I know. Good choice, by the way. I know several female doctors who'll be shooting you death glares for a few weeks."

"Really?"

"Absolutely. He's 'yummier than Nutella on toast', I believe was their description, but I may be paraphrasing. Do you need me to stay here with you, or should I go?"

Wilson's tired smile widened slightly. "It's alright, I just need a bit more time alone before I can go back up there. And thank you. I didn't expect you to be so..."

"Non-ass-like? I know, it's a revolution for me, too."

"No, to understand what I needed to hear. About this, anyway. After all, you're as straight as your cane."

House raised one eyebrow. "You're sure about that?" He turned and began walking out of the morgue, relishing the incredulous stare he knew Wilson was directing at him.

"I - but - you - what?"

"Think of it this way, Wilson," House said, without turning around. "How did I know so quickly that Thirteen went both ways? I mean, my deductive reasoning's good, but not that good."

He smoothly opened the door and left, Wilson gaping at him from the other side of the room.

* * *

"Thirty-two-year-old female, suffering from unexplained muscular atrophy and absence seizures. Oh, and she's mute, but that's congenital."

"House'll be happy about that part. Where is House, by the way?"

"God knows," said Chase. "Maybe something happened with Wilson."

"Oh," Park piped up, "I did see him -"

"-Hi," House's voice interrupted her, and she turned to see him poking his head through the door. "Where's the nearest store that sells paint, wallpaper, that kind of thing?"

"Silver's on Etienne Street." Chase waved the file. "We've got a patient. Absence seizures, muscular atrophy, fever, and she can't speak, which is a bonus for you -"

"Can't. Going home early. I'm, uh, sick." He barked out an obviously fake cough. "I think it might be contagious, so I'm leaving for the safety of the hospital as a whole."

"That logic would work even if you weren't sick," Taub observed dryly.

"Have fun spending the night searching for the usual suspects," House replied, his head disappearing through the gap in the door.

"...Does he often do that?" Adams asked, intrigued.

"Think of it this way; any day where he's not trying to give the patient electric shocks or pulling fire alarms to sneak in and access classified files, it's a fairly mundane day."

Adams smiled. "I think I like my job."

* * *

House was famous (more like infamous) for many things, but doing things by halves was definitely not one of them.

"House? You there? Patient cured already, or are you just leaving your fellows to prevent their arms falling off?" Wilson turned the key and pushed the door open - to a huge expanse of colour.

Rainbow colour, to be exact.

House was standing in the middle of the apartment, one eyebrow quirked in amusement, as Wilson surveyed his handiwork incredulously. He'd kitted out the entire place in rainbow; rainbow wallpaper, rainbow-painted windowsills and light fittings, rainbow cushions on the sofa. The overalls he'd slung on were spattered with enough paint to ironically resemble a fairly mashed-up rainbow.

"I -"

"Too much? I considered bringing in confetti and neon signs as well, but I figured that might be overdoing it."

"Yes," Wilson finally managed, "it's too much. By a long shot." His face broke into an almost giddy smile. "Thank you."

House looked at him, pretending to be confused. "Oh, you thought this was for your benefit? I've always wanted to do this. Just my personal style."

Wilson's gaze panned around the apartment, that familiar warmth soaking through his skin. "You do realise, this has probably killed the miniscule chance you still had of sleeping with Nora."

House grinned. "I can live with that."


	25. Torture

Okay, this one's an AU. Disturbing themes. Enjoy.

* * *

**25.) Torture**

They don't like to say his name. The criminals fear his crystal eyes beyond anything else; they awaken in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and tangled desperately in thin sheets, dreaming of his fingertips caressing their throat, then wrenching their neck around until it snaps, but at the perfect angle so they're still breathing - they hug their daughters a little tighter each morning because of him, memorising their faces. Just in case.

And the law-abiding? Well, they just tend to steer clear of one who reeks of death, especially to his extent.

King Lucas and Queen Lisa's court is revered throughout the world; their tiny country, Adenoma, shines radiantly, built over the ruins of what was once New Jersey. Before the war, of course. Before everything. They took a little sliver of a desecrated world and made it sparkle with hope. People walk the paved streets without the fear of what could make them run; the healthcare system in particular is envied by lands long beyond the horizon.

But with every great land, there are shadows of the terrible. In this case, all condensed into him - the man Queen Lisa would rather not think about, but who she couldn't function without. He's paid handsomely for one very simplistic-sounding job - to get information from the few operating criminals on Adenoma's outskirts when anything unsavoury happens, and he does so with...creative methods. First, he starts talking. Then shouting. Even, occasionally, singing. A point comes that those who know of it have nicknamed 'Tick, Tick, Boom', although perhaps a more accurate nickname would be 'You're Fucked Now'. He goes extremely quiet, then whispers out, "Are you sure you want this to happen?" That's the point where only the bravest and most idiotic stay silent; the rest crack like dropped eggs.

If you're unlucky enough to be in this position and stupid enough to stay quiet, he brings out his arsenal of toys. Rumours abound that he replaces them once per week - even makes some himself, because he thinks repetitions 'just aren't as interesting.' Metal implements; blades, saws, and far more creative pieces, including his rumoured favourite, 'Jimmy' - a glowing silver crescent with points sharp enough to cleave through concrete. He's done many unspeakable things with Jimmy's help, if you believe the darkest stories - the mildest being forcing someone to stand on the points, impaling the soles of their feet; wrapping it around the chest and stabbing it through the shoulders; I won't tell you any others. If he really hates you, he'll go for the thigh muscles. Retribution.

But this is just him; the man in the shadows with the scarlet knife in his gnarled hand. People say (well, people say a lot of things about him, and always in whispers) that he limps because he made a mistake, he took his eyes off someone for a second, let them in, and they seized the knife in their arm and stabbed him, pushing the knife deep into the muscles in his right leg. They say that he's sworn to never make a mistake again; never to let anyone into his head. Apparently the assailant's in enough pieces to not make the same mistake, either. But nobody would doubt that of him.

Gregory House. Maverick. Genius. Sleuth.

Palace torturer.

* * *

Truth is, many of the rumours aren't true, but too many are true to let him sleep at night. Of course, his leg has a rather more pedestrian backstory. And when he heard the Jimmy one...that made him laugh. I'm sure Wilson would be pissed about that, he thinks to himself. Maybe I should tell him that according to most of Adenoma, he's a vicious murder weapon.

But he is the palace torturer, and he knows what murder sounds like. There's always justification, but does anything really justify the light fading in someone's eyes? Worse, letting their knowledge die with them, never retrievable again? Lost to the wind?

Before he can ponder some more (he can go weeks without an assignment, since not many people merit his attention, so he has a lot of pondering time) his phone rings, and he picks it up lazily.

"Cuddy. A case?"

"You will address me as Queen Lisa." She's been trying that tack for five years; her husband insists, but normally it's quite half-hearted. This time, though, her voice is icy cold, the consonants so clipped they're almost painful. His heart begins to race. Last time she sounded like this, he'd been faced with a psychopathic amateur bomb-maker who'd blown his childhood home, as well as five members of his family, to unrecognisable smithereens. He hadn't planned to do that; he was storing the bomb there to attack a public café, just for the hell of it. But the look in his eyes, apathy, almost boredom...it was the only time that he'd ever felt good about seizing the cold metal and bringing it to his neck, watching genuine fear cut through the dullness. It had taken thirty seconds to break his resolve.

"Who is it?" He tries to keep his voice level, but there's still a slight lilt of trepidation. Excitement.

"Name's Alex Valery. Stabbed a sixteen-year-old boy to death in the middle of a crowded street in broad daylight. Was then heard to say, 'this won't be the last.' We think they were talking about a network of murderers, set to strike."

"Say no more. When's his appointment scheduled?"

"Ah, that's the issue." She clears her throat almost imperceptibly. "It's not a 'he'. It's a 'she'. A fifteen-year-old 'she' to be exact -"

"And this is of interest to me why? Will there be legal repercussions if I take a mace to her?"

He can hear Cuddy wince at the description. "No, but -"

"What?"

"Some would consider the ethical implications of having a child interrogated by your...methods, well, distressing -"

"I'm not one of them. Have her up here in fifteen minutes."

"You don't order me around, Gregory, I'm the Queen," she replies, irritated, and he grins. He's been trying to get her to call him House for years, but she won't bite.

"Seeya in fifteen, Cuddy." All that returns is an exasperated sigh and her abruptly hanging up.

* * *

The room's lonely, barren, with huge expanses of red brickwork and a pinewood cabinet leaning against the wall, as well as his desk, settled comfortably in the centre of the room, with two small gaps on the criminal's side for the handcuffs to be slotted through before they're reattached. The cabinet's just there for show; he keeps all the weapons he needs in his desk drawer, and all's in the cabinet is his lunch and one gorgeous, tapered knife with a gilded hilt lying against the transparent glass of the door. It's amazing how pale prisoners turn when he flicks his glance to rest on it. Sometimes, that's all his job entails.

Sometimes, but not always.

He hears footsteps, sits back on the chair, back straightened, eyes piercing. It jars his leg - deliberate, to make sure he's always on edge, that he never slips into a...'forgiving' mood. Or at least, that's what they told him. Probably Lucas' idea, he thinks darkly.

The door swings open, and a girl steps inside. The guards each take one of her arms and lift her into the seat, shackling her ankles to the chair legs and slotting her handcuffs through the table, but he has a feeling that they didn't need to bother - she looked as if she would've quite happily bolted herself in.  
The guards quickly depart (this room is not one for long visits) leaving him and her alone. The silence is deafening.

House studies her with interest. She doesn't look fifteen - he would've guessed nineteen; then again, she could've lied about her age, thinking it would spare her a visit to this particular room. She's extremely pretty, and the sharpness in her what-would-be vacant stare suggests she's also intelligent. Luck giveth, and luck taketh away. Her chestnut hair is chopped into a pixie cut, and her jeans are ripped and stained - although at a close look, most of the stains are dried blood. However, her top is different; it's a long-sleeved turtleneck, even though it's a sunny May day and her skin's too dark to burn easily. And if she's as smart as she looks, stabbing a guy in broad daylight with half the country as witnesses seems a little out of character.

She looks, in a word, contradictory.

"Hello," he greets her pleasantly. "I'm -"

"Gregory House. I'm familiar with your work."

"Good to know the news is spreading. I hear you gave the country a nice little lunchtime spectacle today. Any explanation for that, or were you just testing out your new bread-knife by sticking it in the eye of a man off the street?"

"And the liver, and the spleen..." She smiles lazily as he fixes his eyes on her, never letting up for a second. "Why do you think I did it?"

"You're a very sick and twisted little girl." He smiles identically back at her.

"Good guess, but no."

House curses to himself. You can never let the prisoner get in control of the conversation. Rule #4. "Why did you kill him?" His voice is still pleasant, inquisitive, but it has an undercurrent like ice scraping over steel.

"Have you ever been raped, Gregory?"

"Name's House. And no. But the pointy metal sticks act as a deterrent." She can't tell if he's lying, and he relishes it.

"Well, I have, Gregory." She's still smiling, but now it's positively dangerous. "By a charming young blonde friend of my brother's, who was staying over at our house for a sleepover and then decided, in the middle of the night, that he wanted a drink. He came into my room and asked where the kitchen was. I told him, and he went downstairs, poured himself a nice, cool glass of water, drank it, came back upstairs, waited awake in bed for fifteen minutes until I'd almost drifted off and he was sure my brother was asleep, then decided he'd spend a good half hour taking something else he wanted. Me."

"You should've reported it."

Her smile grows even wider, her eyes glowing with something that borders on deliria. "I've had two friends both try and report similar cases. They were paid off and given complimentary personal attack alarms. One got mugged a few weeks later by some lowlife off the street, and when they tried to set off the alarm it turned out they hadn't put in batteries. I wasn't going to face the indignity of them patting me on the head and telling me to make sure I locked the door next time."

"I'm sorry to break up your monologue, but I've been ordered to question you about a murder."

"I'm getting to that. See, I didn't say anything about what happened, because I wanted to take care of it myself. Started a support group, got in a counsellor, and made sure the bastard never came near my house again. But at lunchtime today, I was heading off for an appointment with my therapist when I saw a certain familiar charming young friend of my brother's. Heading in the direction of a kid's playground. So, I took to him with a bread knife I've kept as my own do-it-yourself personal attack alarm, made a phone call, and handed myself in."

House falls silent. The mad glint in her eyes subsides as quickly as it sparked, and she leans forwards, not smiling anymore.

"He won't be the last. We've kept our secrets long enough. And if they think justifiable murder's worse than unjustifiable rape, they can have that on their conscience."

House clears his head, trying to stop the familiar clouds from forming - the doubts, the guilt clinging to his windpipe and expanding painfully with every intake of breath. "That's not how it works. You're not doing an ethical justice to the world - you're depriving families of the sons, fathers and brothers who will go to the grave with everyone believing them helpless victims and you the psychopathic murderers, you utter idiot. Why didn't you tell people, if you wanted him exiled?"

"I didn't want him exiled. I wanted him to die, in pain, and without rest. And that's all the justice I need. My future is uncertain, but wherever he is, he's burning."

House frowns, his voice hardened, cold. "So, you're putting your faith in Biblical justice. In karma - that people get what they deserve. It's worked out great for you, hasn't it?"

"I've done what I came here for."

"You've given him three minutes of agony, whereas you're looking at sixty years of it."

"No I'm not. If I wanted, I could infuriate you to the point of you ending me here right now."

"Have you not noticed my title? Christ, I know it's not subtle, but rumours get out of hand. I'm the Palace Torturer, not the Palace Guy Who Murders People With Big Metal Sticks for the Hell of It. I've been authorised to use pain to retrieve information. Pain. Not death."

"But you make mistakes. Everyone does." Alex leans back in her chair, giving him a calm stare. "A cut an inch too far to the left; a blinding flash of fury, a corpse bleeding out on the floor. It happens. No need to feel guilty for my sake."

House grits his teeth. She's getting to him. "You don't need to do this. You're fifteen; you're throwing your life away."

"Oh, you're going to tell me how brilliant life is and how beautiful rainbows are? It hasn't treated you that well, considering the cane and how you have to serve as lackey for the man you despise and the woman you love."

"You don't know anything about me." House's voice is even, grating.

"Of course I do. So do they."

"Look -" anger suddenly punches into his chest - "you can't do this! Just tell me when the other girls are going to strike, and I'll let you go! You have a life to screw up! You can't be stupid enough to think that was your only purpose -"

"Life broke me. I broke someone else. That's it. We can get on with the metal implements now."

Silence. He reels, his ribs feeling like they were splintering from the impact of her words - like they could have fallen straight from his lips.

Remorse, bitter remorse builds in the back of his throat like vomit.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

No answer. She just averts her gaze, but not for her own benefit. It's almost like - she doesn't want him to see her scream.

He reaches into the desk drawer, feeling the metal, cold and smooth against his fingers. Normally, it's intoxicating.

Not today.


	26. Isolation

**23.) Isolation**

18 October 2011, 17:00

I broke.

Managed eight long months without a single thought of him. I'm lying. There were many thoughts, most of them not nearly as acrimonious as they should have been, but I never took a single step to act on them. Turned over the picture frames; ignored all the questions until people knew to shut up; and never, ever, looked at the calendar -

I was good! I kept my distance! This wasn't going to be like giving up chocolate for Lent, this was going to be permanent. And it was going well. Eight months, and the pain had started to die down to merely a constant ache, biting every minute of every day and settling and spreading as soon as I lay down to sleep - but I _did_ sleep. Eventually. And life started to get better. Colours brightening, the rings under my eyes growing fainter; not having to twist my head away so quickly my neck nearly snapped when I passed his office. I was moving on, for God's sake. And House isn't like moving on from a bad girlfriend. It's quite literally like moving on from your soulmate after they threw a grenade at their life - with you caught in the crossfire - and then slipped away.

But then, of course, the call came through. Early release. 'Relatively' good behaviour - I laughed at that part; maybe some psychopath had asked him for his Vicodin and he'd bludgeoned him over the head with his cane. Contemplated letting him walk home, but it's twenty miles and I'm distanced, not cruel. But it was supposed to only be a minor setback. I'd pick him up, explain the ground rules on the way back, deposit him at 221 Baker Street and leave him and the past behind. Maybe we'd cross paths in the hallway, he'd look at me, I'd smile, and we'd carry on to our respective roads, no longer parallel or intertwined; nothing but a trajectory change.

How idiotic was I to ever think it would be that simple?

I showed up to pick him up. Waited four. Goddamn. Hours. I really should have left after two, but I figured, he comes out and sees nobody waiting for him in the car park, he's going to be bitter about it for weeks and he's most definitely not going to be civil. (At least, that's how I rationalised it...in brutal reality, I think I just wanted to see his face. But I'm not sure if it's just because I missed him, which I did, or because I wanted to remind myself of how pathetic he looked, prove to myself that I didn't need him...)

Four hours passed, and I eventually walked up to the gates and asked what the hell was going on. Turns out, the idiot's got himself a nice eight months in solitary for forcing aspirin down the throat of a patient he thought had mastocytosis. (Admittedly, the guard pronounced it closer to 'masochist', but I've had fifteen years' experience of learning to speak No Medical Degree.) Moving on's never been his strong point. Nor mine.

And only now do I know it was a mistake to show up in the first place.

Because now I need to see him. I need to hear his voice. I have to see the guilt in his eyes when he sees that my wrist's at a slight angle, because I know he'll notice and I'm torturing myself over whether he'll care.

I need to tell him -

* * *

27 October 2011, 10:00

I'm meant to be at work right now, but I can't bring myself to get out of bed. That's happened before, many times - but not after three antidepressants and a double shot of coffee. I'm shaking, but I still can't get up.

Everything in that place reminds me of him. What the hell happened? How could things just snap - how could eight months of 'moving on' (I have to put it in inverted commas because right now I'm not sure if I was moving on a track or a treadmill) evaporate so quickly? Why do I keep wanting to scream or throw things or cry whenever a glass window catches the light a certain way, whenever the O.C. appears on TV, that time I glanced at kids playing marbles on the sidewalk and there was one the colour of his eyes, like sapphires submerged in dark water...

Why am I asking myself all these questions? Christ, most people would be happy to have Gregory House surgically removed from their lives. They'd throw a party and bake special cookies shaped like canes, for God's sake. Put out a plate of spearmint tic-tacs and pretend they're Vicodin. I'm thinking this through far too much.

Still not looking at the calendar, though. When that happens, I'll know it's over.

Says a lot about me that I'm alone and it's light and I can't get up but I still don't think it's over.

A whole fucking lot.

* * *

1 November 2011, 16:00

I'm meant to be seeing a patient, but I'm up on the rooftop. This is getting out of hand. The stone's rough under my skin; I'm lying on the rooftop, watching people, or rather misshapen dots. No, I'm not thinking about suicide. Not any more than idly, anyway. One slip and everything's gone; no sound or black or anything but nothing. House said that.

House! If only his name was Juggernaut or Stephanopoulos, I might be able to push it out of my mind to some effect (the face, the smile, the voice - all lost causes). But no, he had to have the most common name it would seem in the history of the English language. I can't even watch property shows or teleshopping anymore, and nothing else is on at 3am unless you're willing to pay $32 per hour.

...Don't ask me how I know the price.

Can't sleep. Of course. Inevitable, really. Not that I particularly feel like taking my chances with dreams. The last one involved a well-timed car crash and a scream that didn't stop when sleep did.

Been awake for fifty hours. Still not looking at that calendar, though. It doesn't feel like much of a victory, but I still have something.

Wonder what use House can make of the rest of me. (He's probably auctioned it off for Vicodin and a chessboard.)

* * *

5 November 2011, 22:00

The prison's dark against the skyline through the car window. Safe to say I snapped. It's the fifth of November (calendar confirmed) and I'm in my car in the prison parking lot, plan unfolding in my mind and kit bag in the passenger seat, the last shreds of rationality remaining attempting to keep me locked in my seat. Wonder how long that'll last.

I wonder if he sleeps at night.

I wonder what he dreams.

* * *

6 November 2011, 04:00

Screw it.

I'm going in.

* * *

James Wilson walked nervously up to the gate, eyes darting from side-to-side, paranoid someone would notice him, even this late at night. The generic navy prison uniform was a size too small (closest size in the costume store) and clung suffocatingly to his skin, but he barely felt it. After three days of no sleep, sensations become more or less non-existent.

He pressed the intercom button. The tiny buzz made him jolt.

"Hello, uh...officer...reporting for duty." Wow, cop shows were really not serving him well right now.

"The Bill ripoff, huh? Smartass. Name?"

Shite. His sluggish, caffeine-reanimated brain struggled to claw for any information, anything that could save him. Name? What's a name? Suddenly, a lightning bolt struck him in the chest; the idiot prison officer who'd pronounced mastocytosis as masochism. He'd mentioned it in passing, worth a shot -

"Officer Sora, speaking."

"Huh?"

_Wait, no, that was his dog's name._

"I meant Officer Tyler."

"You're a real fuckin' idiot, Tyler. Security ID."

Wilson's mind went blank, and he froze. "I - I've forgotten my card," he stuttered. The voice over the intercom sighed, exasperated.

"Fine. I'll let you off this once. Swear to God, you have the IQ of a fuckin' doorknob sometimes. A really stupid doorknob too. Now go do your job and let me finish my nap." The door buzzed, and he pushed it open, hardly even believing what he was hearing.

Well, maybe God was making up a little for the gigantic pile of shit he'd deposited on his life over the past nine months. As well as the fact that this was a lost-cause minimum-security prison that probably didn't give a crap if its prisoners got out; it'd likely be doing them a favour.

_Step one done,_ Wilson figured. _I've conclusively established that I'm completely insane and have a death wish. Now to find the isolation cells._

Strangely enough, signage is actually quite good in prisons, so Wilson found his way to isolation fairly quickly, only bumping into one other hack who'd just looked at him with glassy eyes and nodded absently. The doors weren't covered in bars or anything, but they were locked, and his sleep-deprivation-addled psyche could just about register that he needed a key and didn't have one.

He leaned heavily against the nearest door, aching fatigue settling heavily into his shoulders, and was tempted to go to sleep right there and then (even an overnight stay in a jail cell looked fairly desirable right now) when he heard a 'click' and suddenly he was falling towards the floor.

"Door's unlocked," House murmured sleepily. "They couldn't find the key and they figured I'm not quite stupid enough or desperate enough to try and limp off."

Wilson had somehow turned over while falling and now his face was squashed into the dirty floor, dust pressed against his eyelids which he squeezed shut, feeling hot, acidic tears try and force their way out. His elbow was jarred and his knee skinned but he wasn't even close to caring because he'd waited nine months to hear that voice and it sounded...miserable. And insomnia-ravaged.

"House."

A scruffy, bearded, pale House peeked his head out from under the covers. "What the hell do you want? It's - well, I lost my watch as collateral three weeks ago, but judging by the lovely black sky outside, it's late enough for me to be pissed about being woken up. If you're counting heads, hi, I'm here, Greg House, nice to meet you, we should get coffee sometime. If you're looking for an easy prison rape, wake me up when you're done." He flopped - yep, that's the only word to describe it - back under the covers and immediately started exaggeratedly snoring.

"House, it's me."

Silence, then a muffled, surprised voice floated out from under the thin blanket. "Why do you sound like Wilson?"

"Strangely enough, that's because I am Wilson. Actually, I'm his long-lost evil twin who works as a prison officer. Crazy coincidence, huh?" He attempted to sound flippant, but it came out strangled because of the lump in his throat.

House slowly reappeared, and it was only on the second look that Wilson saw how tired and red his eyes were, startlingly blue irises even brighter against bloodshot whites. "Wow. My hallucinations get more vivid by the day. It's really quite impressive."

"I'm not a hallucination. Wait. You're hallucinating?"

"Just like Wilson. Stand back before your caring leaks on me." House quirked an eyebrow confusedly. "Why am I hallucinating Wilson?" he asked himself. "It's been two months since that, it would be a strange time for a reappearance. And to answer your question, Scarily Accurate Apparation, yes, I am hallucinating, because for the past eight months I've either been on too little Vicodin, or what I'm on now, which is either ibuprofen or birth control pills. It was a mistake the first time, but now I reckon they're just doing it to piss me off. Got to hand it to them, it's working."

"House, it's actually me. No hallucinations. _Me._" Annoyance flared in his stomach and _oh, right, that's what being around House used to be like. Glad I've missed it so much._

"Now, this is weird. Normally by this point you're either doing the All the Single Ladies dance, professing your undying love for me, or your head's fallen off to reveal a giant android head that shoots lasers."

"Sounds great - wait, what? Undying love?"

"Of course," House tutted. "He's been in love with me for years, which you would know if you were the real Wilson, Big Fat Faker. Or at least, he'd better be, because if I tell him I love him when I get out and he just looks at me blankly, I'll have to concuss him with my cane, and I'm sorely out of practice."

Silence.

Wilson just stared at him, eyes wide, not daring to breathe. House turned to meet his gaze, and a flicker of paralysing fear ran across his face.

"Get out," he breathed.

"What?"

"GET OUT!" He threw a pillow savagely at Wilson. "LEAVE, OR I'LL TELL THEM YOU'RE HERE AND YOU CAN GET TOSSED OUT! GO!"

The sudden vicious anger in his voice caught him off guard, and he recoiled. "Wait, House - why - ?"

"EIGHT MONTHS, WILSON! EIGHT MONTHS AND NOT ONE VISIT, ONE LETTER -"

"YOU LEFT!" Wilson barely even registered that now, he was yelling, too. "THREE MONTHS AND NOTHING, NOT TO ME, NOT TO CUDDY - HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO HER? TO ME?"

"I WAS TRYING TO GIVE YOU SPACE!"

"I DIDN'T NEED SPACE, I NEEDED TO SEE YOU! FOR YOU TO TELL ME YOU WERE SORRY! DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU DISAPPEARING FROM MY LIFE WOULD DO ME ANY GOOD, CONSIDERING YOU'RE THE CENTRE OF IT?"

"I COULD SAY THE SAME TO YOU! EIGHT MONTHS, AND YOU LEFT ME STRANDED!"

"YOU BROKE MY WRIST!"

_"YOU BROKE MY HEART!"_

House hurled another pillow at Wilson, a single tear burning its way down his cheek and his face twisted into a scowl, and this time Wilson didn't stop - he just turned, ran; down identical corridors, past gaping prison officers and sleeping inmates and pacing inmates, running, not caring where he went, and suddenly he was glad of the signage because he soon found the door to outside and forced it open, feeling a wall of cold air slam into him, the impact of the door slamming rattling in his bones.

He walked slowly, deadened, back to his car. Turned the key in the ignition. Pressed his foot to the accelerator pedal.

Drove, and drove, and drove.

* * *

6 November 2011, 05:30

He loves me.

* * *

6 November 2011, 05:31

Gregory House is in _love_ with _me_.

* * *

6 November 2011, 05:33

Fifteen years, and I never realised he felt it back.

* * *

6 November 2011, 05:35

I need to tell him. I need to go back there. I need to tell him he's not alone. It's been fifteen years, I'm not waiting any longer. Not anymore.

God, how do I turn this thing around? Steering wheel, brake, accelerator down-

**RED LIGHT RED LIGHT RED LIGHT**

* * *

The car smashed into an articulated lorry, flipping spectacularly into the air and sending loose shards scattering into the road. Then, almost as if in slow motion, it slammed back into the tarmac and rolled onto its side, throwing Wilson out through the passenger door and smashing him into the street.

A millisecond before the impact, if you were looking closely enough, you might have been able to see him smile.


	27. Snow

**30.) Snow**

_"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..."_

House was lying on the sofa, idly singing Christmas carols as he stared out through the window at the slow snowfall. "Looks like I'm going to have to stay here overnight, Wilson," he called across the room to Wilson, who was cracking open a box of mince pies.

"Not a chance," Wilson scoffed. "Sam's getting back from Christmas with her family in a few hours, and I'm not having you here making lewd jokes and trying to spike her mulled wine with laxatives."

"Oh, I'd never do that," House feigned a hurt expression. "Laxatives are for lazy idiots that can't be bothered to source _real_ drugs. Hardcore hallucinogenics are far more fun. Besides, I have to stay. It's snowing, and I wasn't exactly a champion ice-skater even before my leg went to hell."

"So take your motorbike!"

"Sure, I'll drive my motorbike over the ice sheet where the road used to be. While I'm at it, why don't I go swim through a vat of radioactive waste?"

"I'm pretty sure there's a petition circulating for that," Chase added through a mouthful of cold turkey. "Well, it might be an inconvenience, but at least the snow looks nice."

"Sure. Just sweep away the empty wine bottles and the half-finished poker game, and this could be a scene from a goddamn Christmas card."

Though, House had to admit, Chase was right. The sky was off-white with cloud cover and glowing, lighting up the spinning snowflakes as they drifted down to Earth; icing-sugar dusted over the silent landscape, building up into a thin blanket of shimmering crystals. Though maybe that was just the wine talking.

"Can we light the fire?" Thirteen asked, looking over from the top of her book, a thick tome with a black cover. "It's just - that was how I always used to spend Christmas, reading a book by the fire."

"Same here," Adams smiled, curled up on a chair by the window.

"Yeah, but unless you were only doing it to drown out the yells of your psychotic mother trying to break through her door, I highly doubt your Christmases were remotely similar," House replied.

Thirteen shot him a dirty look and returned to her book, bringing it so close to her face she nearly went cross-eyed. Chase brought out a box of matches and started towards the fireplace.

"It's electric."

Chase sighed.

* * *

"So, why did you all agree to spend Christmas here?" Thirteen put down the mysterious book, bent open at her page, and looked around interestedly.

"Free booze," House immediately said. "Always a deal-maker."

"Ever been in a flat alone on Christmas? It's _dismal_. I'd probably end up calling Cameron and falling asleep with my head in the toilet."

"Sounds like a great time to me!"

"I would be at my family Christmas," Adams grimaced, "but my ex-husband's going."

"What?" Wilson sat bolt upright. "They invited the ex?"

"Well..." Adams twined a lock of hair around her finger awkwardly, "my parents don't exactly know the conditions in which we broke up."

"Why not? It'd be funny to see your dad take to him with a pair of hedge clippers. He'd probably mount his testicles on the wall like a moose head -"

"Shut up, House."

"I just...I don't want to tell them. They thought, and I thought, that we had such a perfect relationship. I'd rather they think it ended amicably." She suddenly cracked a wicked smile. "Then, when they're not looking, _I_ can take to him with a pair of hedge clippers."

The five soon fell into a contented silence, the blanketed light growing fainter and the warm buzz of the alcohol wrapping around them, a soft haze. Adams closed her eyes and smiled.

* * *

The sound of a car alarm woke her up.

Adams blinked sleepily, adjusting to the new darkness of the room; nearly pitch-black, except for the flickering firelight. Chase was sprawled out on the floor by the kitchen counter; Thirteen curled around her book like a sleeping cat, her chestnut hair splayed across the pages; and House - she stifled a giggle - House was lying sprawled across the sofa, Wilson slouched against the side, head resting on his ribs. And did Wilson almost...have his arm around him?

"Guys," she murmured, "if we want to get home, we'd better get going." She squinted to see the digital alarm clock on the kitchen counter, which looked to read half past midnight. A collective groan hit the air, Thirteen first to get up; agilely uncoiling and gracefully got to her feet (she'd always figured her a light sleeper). Chase, however, had now rolled rather less gracefully onto his back, staring blankly up at the ceiling, limbs flung out like a stranded starfish.

"Wilson. Wilson!" House whacked him unceremoniously over the head. "I'd imagine that wherever your girlfriend is, she's pissed. And I told you, no cuddling except _after_ sex. Remember our deal?" He wriggled out from under Wilson's dead weight and reached out, attempting to grasp for his cane.

"Um...guys?"

The other four looked up, seeing Thirteen gazing out of the window. "I...don't think we're going anywhere."

The view out of the window was now non-existent; a huge block of snow was pressed up against the glass. "Oh, shit," Wilson cursed, "Sam." He sprang upwards and sprinted upstairs, towards the window on the landing. A muffled "Fuck," returned downstairs.

"Sure, be concerned about your girlfriend. What about me? I'm stuck in your mother's house, with a bunch of people I lock myself in clinic rooms to avoid. You reckon a motorbike can cut through that?"

"You lock yourself in clinic rooms to avoid Cuddy."

"Actually, since I started sleeping with her, clinic rooms have acquired a rather more fun purpose during office hours -"

"Right," Chase winced. "Because we really want to hear about your sex life."

"You don't have to," House bit back. "Try going for a stroll outside. Hypothermia's in fashion now, anyway. The blueish tone will really go with your eyes."

"Oh, God," Thirteen sighed. "A whole night with you all bickering. Wilson, you don't have any more wine, do you?"

"No. I think there's a bottle of some kind of lurid-coloured spirit in the liquor cabinet that's been there since 2003 -"

"Close enough," Thirteen muttered, heading for the kitchen.

Adams, curious, climbed the stairs (House shooting her a murderous look) and peeked over Wilson's shoulder, her breath catching in her throat. The picturesque snowfall had ratcheted up to a full-fledged blizzard, and the white blanket had entirely submerged hers and Thirteen's cars and House's motorbike. The lampposts were poking forlornly out of the top like stranded searchlights, and she stared confusedly at a lump in the snow's surface before realising with a start that it was the top of the massive, obnoxious SUV that had cut her off when she was parking earlier.

Well, that was satisfying.

"What's the verdict?" House called up the stairs. Adams just leant over the railing and drew her finger across her throat, hearing Wilson frantically scramble for his phone and start tapping at the keypad.

"Sam? Sam! Where are you? You're not buried under a fifty-foot snowdrift, are - wait, you haven't left the house?" Pause. "You could've told me that, I've been worried sick - come on, you were too busy for a thirty-second phone call?" Footsteps led into one of the bedrooms; door slammed shut, muffled argument persisted.

"Well, crap," Chase sighed. "How the hell are we going to get through a whole night? It's soon going to get way too cold to sleep, and - hey, where'd that bottle of strangely coloured liquor go?"

"The less you know, the better," House smiled, his words slurred almost imperceptibly. God, the man's liver must be forged from steel, Chase thought to himself.

"Oh! I know!"

Thirteen's face suddenly glowed, but she quickly shut herself off and composed her expression. "Actually, no, forget about it."

"What?" Chase now looked intrigued, startlingly resembling a curious Golden Retriever. If Golden Retrievers all had Australian accents and alcohol on their breath. (In which case, this would be a much better world to live in.)

"It's nothing. Let's talk about something else."

"Reverse psychology. I like it. Fine, we're not interested," House announced, giving Chase an exaggerated wink.

"Don't get into a game of reverse-reverse psychology with me. I will destroy you. All that'll be left of you will be a few bones, an empty pill bottle," she looked threateningly at his cane, "and some pencil sharpenings."

"You touch the cane and you die, Huntington's."

"Oh? You mean like this?" Thirteen smiled, and reached out one tapered finger to gently stroke the edge of the cane. "You going to do anything about that, Scrooge?"

"All right, Little Miss Ambisextarous, let's roll -"

"Stop it," Chase stood in between them, pushing them apart, then clocked the identical death glares they were shooting him and backed off. "Thirteen, what were you going to suggest?"

"Well...we could do truth or dare."

"Yes," Chase and House replied simultaneously. "Actually, can we have strip truth or dare, but it's only you stripping?" House added.

"I'm insulted," Adams grinned.

"Oh, we would've asked you, but judging by your husband, an inch too close and you'd go at us with a hacksaw," Chase replied, backing away slowly from House and Thirteen, who were still making this-is-war expressions at each other.

"I'm up for some truth or dare. Looks like Wilson's going to be a while, though -" her words were cut off by a door slamming and Wilson stalking loudly down the stairs.

"She's now pissed at _me_. How does that even work?"

"I know the feeling," Chase said.

"You can't talk, you killed a man," Wilson bit back, irritated, clicking his phone shut and shoving it roughly into his back pocket.

"What?" Adams' eyes widened and her mouth dropped open.

"It's a figure of speech," House interrupted hurriedly, grunting as he pushed the sofa out of the way to leave a big gap in the middle of the floor. "Everyone, take your places. I have a feeling this is going to be good."

* * *

"Truth or dare."

"I'm not playing," Wilson replied huffily.

"Of course you're playing. Everyone's playing. Just picture your girlfriend slowly suffocating inside a block of snow, that should make you feel better."

"Always does for me," House piped up.

"Fine, truth."

A flurry of questions quickly started being fired at him. "Why did you become an oncologist?" "Are you in love with Sam?" "How did you and House become friends?" "Have you ever had sex with a man?"

"Whoa," Wilson put his hands up defensively, "I asked for one truth, not four."

"Children, children," Thirteen looked around threateningly and everyone shut up. "As much as I'm tempted to take House's question -"

"-that's men excluding me, of course; we all know what we get up to -"

"Anyway, I'm actually curious about Chase's question. How did you two meet?"

"Now, that's a good one," House mused. "Was it a gay bar, brothel or strip club? I can never remember. Actually, I'm not even sure if that was you; it was loud and I was blindfolded -"

"It should be illegal for you to have more than three drinks in a two-hour period."

"Sure, but if it was, the world would be so much more boring."

Wilson rolled his eyes and turned to Thirteen. "I met House in a conference twenty years or so ago. I smashed a mirror, and he thought I was marginally less boring than everyone else. It's really a beautiful relationship." He pretended to wipe away a tear.

"What he fails to tell you is that he smashed the mirror because he was angry, because he was divorcing his ex-wife. What was her name, again?"

Wilson blushed red and shot him an angry look.

"No," Thirteen breathed. "Really? Sam's your ex-wife? You're an _idiot_."

"I'm aware. Next person?"

"That'd be me," Adams said apprehensively. "I'll take truth."

"Do you like anyone?" Chase quickly fired at her, a ridiculously hopeful look on his face."

"What are you, twelve?" House muttered under his breath.

"As a matter of fact, yes, I do like someone," Adams replied smoothly, giving him a flirty look and batting her eyelashes. "Thirteen." She theatrically ripped her gaze away from him and smiled at Thirteen, leaving Chase looking like a lovesick puppy that'd just been hit over the nose with a newspaper.

"I'm flattered." Thirteen turned to House briskly, but Adams could've sworn she smiled back at her, just for a second. "Truth or dare, House?"

"Screw it. Dare."

"Nothing involving me and him," Wilson quickly confirmed.

"I agree. I'm just completely spent after that hour in the janitor's closet -"

_"House!"_

"Oh, you loved it. Want to use the cane as a prop again next time?"

"You're incorrigible." Wilson was now the colour of a ripe beetroot, averting everyone's eyes. House grinned evilly.

"I dare you to go outside for three minutes," Chase suddenly thought aloud.

"Fine," House announced, getting to his feet and limping towards the door. They heard the sound of the door unlocking, swinging open, and then a strange, quiet 'thud.' After thirty seconds' silence, Thirteen picked herself up and looked around the corner, immediately cracking up laughing.

A massive load of snow had dumped itself on House's head and soaked into his clothes. He blinked, spat out a lump, then crouched down into an awkward ball. "Start the timer."

"That's not outside!"

"There is snow in my _eyelids_. Is this really the time to be pedantic?"

The other five shrugged and watched him shiver for three minutes, stifling their laughter. Eventually he picked himself up, now a slight blueish colour, and walked cantankerously back into the living room.

"That was more than three minutes."

"Seven, actually."

"Bastards. Chase, it's your turn to suffer."

"Alright. Chase, truth or dare?" The spark in her eyes suggested that Thirteen was greatly enjoying her role as ringmaster.

"Dare."

"No, we're not letting you go into a closet for seven minutes with Jess."

"Aww."

"Who's Jess?" House looked around, bewildered. "Oh, right. Sorry, Wilson, it's been so long since I used your first name."

"Ha, ha. Chase, I dare you to tell us how many women you've actually slept with."

"That's basically a truth."

"Fine, whilst doing the Macarena."

Chase awkwardly got to his feet. "Uh," he stuck his arms out in front of him, "how does the Macarena go again?"

"Just make something up. Humiliation's the goal."

"Okay," he started moving his arms in some kind of robotic dance, "let's see, there's the 15 at med school, then..." He scrunched up his face comically, trying to add up. "Fifty-four."

"Aw, that's anticlimactic."

Wilson sprang to his feet, ripping his phone from his pocket. "She's calling me," he said, bringing the phone to his ear and walking briskly off.

"That's it for me, guys," Adams smiled. "I'm going to go get some sleep." She set off up the stairs, reaching for the bedroom doorknob, but as she turned it she heard footsteps behind her.

* * *

"Remy? Hi?"

"You weren't joking, were you?'

"What?" Adams paled slightly when she saw how blazing her eyes were, staring almost creepily into hers.

"In that dare. You weren't joking - you do like me, don't you?"

"What? No -" She was suddenly aware of how much she sucked at lying. "Yes. Fine. How'd you know?"

"I'm the Queen of Truth or Dare. That includes the 'truth' part."

"Right."

Before Adams could process anything, Thirteen darted forward, quickly pressed her lips to hers, then jumped back.

"...Hey, what was that for?" Adams tried to sound annoyed, but as her brain realised what had just happened, a slow smile began to spread across her face. Thirteen just shrugged.

"Felt like it. I'll see you in the morning." Before Adams could stop her, she'd darted outside, closing the door behind her.

Adams just stared after the strange little nymph with the chestnut hair, silence screaming in her ears and the biting cold wrapped around her skin.

* * *

"...What just happened?"


	28. Want

**28.) Want**

She knew this place all too well. Or perhaps not that well at all; the only times she felt it necessary to frequent this particular joint, a blanket of lust and well-timed shots quickly reduced it to little more than a cacophony of throbbing bass beats and sparkling eyes. Most of her fond memories here consisted of a hazy wall of strobe lights and candied lips pressed against her collarbone, heat flushing her skin and staining her vision; tapered fingers drumming against the bar counter; the sweet hiss of_ "Hey, want to get out of here? I know a place-"_

Admittedly, her favourite part came afterwards, but the build-up could be just as intoxicating as any drink. She liked those nights, and she expected this to be another one to add to the list.

What she didn't expect was to bang into a certain familiar face the second she pushed open the door.

"...Allison?"

"Hi, Remy," Cameron smiled, forgetting where she was for a second, but then the realisation of _oh shit I'm in a gay bar_ struck her like a bitch-slap and she froze, cheeks quickly blushing pink. "It's not what you think -"

"That's a shame. Why're you here?"

"Assignment from House. This is a favourite haunt of our newest patient - got admitted four hours ago, hence you haven't heard about them yet - and they had a one-night-stand here a few days ago. House has a theory that the patient has complications from a rare STD and I've been tasked to find the person, lest they have it swimming around in their bloodstream. And I suppose I don't have to ask why you're here." Cameron laughed, but it sounded uneasy. Her gaze flitted to the door, then the ceiling, avoiding her eyes.

"If they spend a decent amount of time here, they'll have more than STDs floating around in there." Thirteen surveyed her territory, a rush of electricity sweeping through her in how she'd only been here a minute and yet at least two people were trying to catch her eye. "By the way, I've...accosted someone in the past few days here..." She gave Cameron a look that told her all she needed to know. Cameron flushed slightly deeper.

"She's called Millie Donahue. Twenty-five, works as a graphic designer down in Trenton..."

Thirteen broke the playful stare she was sending a particular blonde girl across the room to shoot Cameron a withering look. "Allison, I hate to tell you, but we didn't exactly exchange life stories."

"Not even names?"

"Most people come here under a pseudonym - makes things less awkward; also means the still-closeted can separate this part of their life from the other parts."

"Does that include you?"

Thirteen stuck out her hand theatrically. "Beauregard Esmeralda, nice to meet you." She took notice of Cameron's astonished face and cracked a smile. "There's a protocol that you use your middle name and first pet, but mine would probably chase people off. No, I just...don't tell people my name. Usually they don't care."

"Why?"

"No names, no phone numbers, ergo no surprise calls the next day that start, "Hey, I really liked the audition, will there be any callbacks?" Some people really can't grasp the whole no-strings-attached concept."

Cameron stopped, pondered this for a second. "Your first pet was called Esmeralda?"

"No. Kibbles. But Esmeralda just sounds better, y'know?"

Cameron smiled slightly. "I'm going to be here for a while, working my way around every person in this place," she gestured pointedly to the milling crowd of people and the packed dance floor, then winced about how that sounded. "Not in that way, just to clarify...you know what I meant, right? Plus, the music kind of grates after a while -"

"Trust me, I know. The guy has five songs and plays them on repeat. He seems to think that everyone here has a fifteen-minute memory span. Plus, he's got it into his head that techno tracks all sound different, when in actual fact -"

"-they all sound exactly the same," Cameron finished. "So, you want to grab a drink to make the time pass quicker?"

"I thought you'd never ask. I recommend the Hooker for Hire, or maybe the Happy Happy Fun Fun Time."

Cameron's eyebrows nearly shot through the top of her skull. "You what?"

"They're drinks," Thirteen laughed.

"Happy Happy Fun Fun Time? That should be illegal."

"I believe that one's peach schnapps, watermelon Bacardi and a good dash of Rohypnol." Thirteen arched one eyebrow expressively. "If memory serves correct, of course, which I doubt. And the Hooker for Hire is a double vodka on the rocks with a business card taped to it."

"...I think I'll just go for a screwdriver."

"Spoilsport."

* * *

Long story short, the 'one drink', unsurprisingly, was not one drink. More like...four? Five? It wasn't that her mental state had deteriorated enough to not be able to count, just that when she looked at her hands she was vaguely sure there were twelve fingers instead of ten. After the first two screwdrivers, the bartender had offered to treat them to a free taster of their newest addition, "Nostalgia." Not exactly aptly named, because she could never quite remember any childhood instances involving that quantity of alcohol topped off with rainbow sugar (then again, she supposed, if they did happen she most likely wouldn't be in much state to remember them the morning after) but the effects it was having on her were only marginally less enjoyable than what it was doing to Cameron. She was becoming more animated, relaxed...downright sexy, she'd hazard. When the bartender had complimented them on what a lovely couple they made, Cameron hadn't even objected - she'd just smiled and downed the rest of her drink.

Thirteen tried to ignore the electric currents flashing through her head at the thought. Just like you, she cursed herself, in a club full of hot gay women and your subconscious is instantly drawn to the straight emotional wreck who's also one of your colleagues. Masochism complex much?

"So, I'm guessing you've given up on finding the one-night-stand?"

Cameron grinned, swaying unsteadily on the vinyl stool and quickly clutching at the sides to keep herself upright. "Doesn't matter," she replied, her speech slurred, but not that much. "I got a page from House two hours ago - patient's got a fever, which doesn't fit his diagnosis."

"How come you're still here, then?"

"A doctor having a social life is difficult; a doctor under House having a social life is basically impossible, with you as the exception. Figured I'd take advantage, pretend I hadn't got the page. And -" Cameron checked herself, the rosy glow that had been lighting up her cheeks all night firing into a bright red blush.

"What is it?"

"Nothing," Cameron replied quickly, suddenly panicking.

"Come on, I'm hardly going to remember, and even if I do, I'm a bisexual doctor who likes keeping people guessing, I think I know how to keep secrets."

Cameron bit her lip, and Thirteen instantly tried to rid herself of the thoughts conjured up by that image; the alluring connotations. "I kind of like the attention I'm getting. I probably shouldn't, since I know I'm leading people on, but it's been a long time." She shook her head. "No, I should really get out of here. I don't like the idea of people wanting something they can't get."

"If it'll make you feel better, I know something that'll get them to stop looking."

"What?"

"Kiss me."

Cameron's eyes widened, a flicker of fear passing along the irises, but dulled by the liquor and the obvious curiosity she quickly tried to mask. "Not happening, Thirteen. You're drunk."

"And you were calling me Remy a few minutes ago. So, the question remains; why not? You know I wouldn't tell anyone, so you're not scared that it'll get out. You -" Thirteen let out a long, slow breath, an intrigued smile tugging at the corners of her lips - "you're just scared about what it might mean if you kiss me. You're scared that you might not be straight," Thirteen challenged.

"Don't be stupid," Cameron snapped. "I'm thirty - well, I'm at the age where I'm pretty secure about whether or not I'm gay. Just to clarify, I also definitely hate olives, and am almost certain I want to be a doctor."

"Prove it."

"Fine, I'll order some olives and take out my stethoscope."

"That's not what I meant."

The music seemed to quieten at her words. The scene looked strange; Cameron defiant and slightly scared, Thirteen's curious eyes locked on hers, their stools so close together that they were almost touching. To any outsider, they looked like a couple having an argument. "Prove it how?"

"Kiss me."

Cameron sighed, shook her head. Thirteen imagined she was trying to look dismissive and contemptuous, but it came off more like an eleven-year-old at Six Flags refusing to go on a rollercoaster. "You wish."

"Yes, I do. _Kiss me._"

"What's it going to prove?" Cameron suddenly sounded rattled. The 'yes' had gotten to her, permeated through her exoskeleton, which was never that thick to begin with. It never was with Cameron - she was achingly easy to twist, manipulate; a tempting challenge, to get under her skin.

"Anything you want it to prove. Or nothing, considering we're both drunk."

"Fine. Nothing. Leave me be. Go throw down another scarily-named shot and find someone in this place to hook up with who doesn't look like she's been dragged feet-first out of a hedge - or does, I don't care." Cameron tried to fold her arms across her chest, but she quickly overbalanced and Thirteen had to grab her shoulder, leaving a faint red imprint on her bare skin. They both tried not to think about the slight gasp Cameron let out at her touch - one that was definitely not just from the near-fall.

"I'll be sure to do so, but first I want you to kiss me. Who knows, maybe a willing volunteer will come forward for a threesome."

_"Remy!"_

"Ha, now you're calling me Remy again."

"You're impossible," Cameron hissed through clenched teeth. "I'm straight, you're my colleague, you're drunk, and I'm not taking advantage of you by kissing you."

Thirteen pounced on her words like a cat on a laser dot. "Taking advantage? Seriously? Cameron, I'm not a scared little kitten, and you can't present this as you protecting me. I just downed three shots of questionable origin and three nights ago took a girl home from here without ever learning her name. If you don't want to kiss me, it's your own choice."

"Fine, I don't want to kiss you."

"Yes you do."

"No, I don't."

"Sure you do. I'm me. I attract most things with a heartbeat." Thirteen coughed and rubbed her forehead; the constant onslaught of strobe lighting was getting to her. "Sorry, I think I've entered the Narcissism stage of being drunk."

"Next stage?"

"Uncontrollable slut."

"Can't wait. Stage after that?"

"Not sure, normally I stop at that. Probably 'Comatose' or 'Liver Transplant'."

"I'm not kissing you."

"But you want to."

"We've been through this! No I don't!"

"Then why can't you take your eyes off me?"

"Excuse me if I tend to look at people whilst I talk to them. How impolite of me. If you want, I could stare adoringly at that potted plant over there."

"Why is your hand on my leg, then?"

Cameron gasped, glancing downwards, only to see that her hand was firmly planted on her own knee. "Bitch."

"But you knew full well you could've been doing it."

"But I wasn't."

"Kiss me!'

"No! Thirteen, stop it!"

"Why the hell not? I see how you look at me when we're on cases, the little flicker you get in your eyes - you think you're good at covering it up, but you suck at it! Fact is, Cameron, you're attracted to me, and you're obviously not concerned about the validity of relationships between colleagues. The only possible reason that you're refusing is that you're quite simply sca -"

Cameron abruptly cut her off. It took a few seconds for Thirteen to register that she was kissing her.

Thirteen's eyes flew open, trying to take in what was going on, the thousands of concurrent sensations threatening to overwhelm her. She'd be lying if she said there were fireworks going off; she'd passed the inebriation threshold for that - but a slow warmth was spreading through her veins, like honey falling from her fingertips up into her heart and back again. Butterflies flickered softly in the pit of her stomach - she'd long since learned the medical reason for the phenomenon, but now was by no means the time to try and recall it - and the overwhelming sensation was that they just seemed to fit. Their lips moved together in an easy, flowing rhythm, Cameron's eyes half-closed and Thirteen's wide open, everything around the room dying to a halt as she tried to somehow make sense of how soft her skin was and the slight scent of watermelon - her shampoo? Not lipgloss, not sticky enough - and the way she'd just smoothly leaned in and how there didn't seem to be any anger or points to prove in it, no power struggles or biting lust or laser light shows, just the surprisingly easy rhythm and fingertips brushing together and _wait this has been going on about fifteen seconds too long to be a dare_ -

And before she'd even managed to absorb half of it, Cameron had broken away and slightly leaned back. She wasn't smiling giddily or looking embarrassed, just a level, mild expression of curiosity and interest. As if she was thinking, "Well, that was unexpected." It looked just so quintessentially Cameron that Thirteen just wanted to kiss her again, but an unfamiliar fear was stirring in her stomach and damn it, now she was thinking about what this means. Come on, Remy, she told herself, this is not a place where meanings come into it.

"So..."

Thirteen expected a thousand different replies from Cameron. "I did it, now let's move on." "Let's never breach the subject again." "You're annoying when you're drunk." "Well, that felt...strange." "I didn't feel anything." "Sorry, you haven't converted me." "I think I'm kind of a slutty drunk." "You know, the weather's been really nice lately..."

The only one she didn't expect, ironically, was the one she got.

"You want to get out of here? I know a place."

Not the usual quick-fired hiss, whispered like a bullet through dilated pupils and lust constricting their heart like a bittersweet vice; just a simple question. And now it was Thirteen's turn to be shocked.

"I - don't - wha - are you sure?"

Cameron shrugged. "Sure as I'll ever be."

"But - you're straight!"

"I can reconsider, can't I? We're not sure of everything by this point, only most things. I still hate olives, I still like being a doctor, and maybe I can shift a notch to the right on the whole completely-straight deal. Sound fair?"

Thirteen paused for a second, thoughts swimming slowly through her brain as if it were oil; she carelessly pushed them aside. "Can't argue with that."

"Good. Let's go find a taxi. You have any money?"

"Not sure. Worst comes to worst, I'll pay him - or her - with a lap-dance."

"I'm sure they won't object."

* * *

Morning sunlight streamed through the unfamiliar window. Thirteen cracked one eye open, vision as bleary as her recollection. Both sharpened significantly when she laid eyes on the person next to her. Blonde, pretty, pale -

_Oh._

"Morning," Cameron groggily croaked, stirring slightly and half-opening her eyes to look at Thirteen. "If you want to cut and run, be my guest. I know how it works; no callbacks."

"I would, but I hear from Chase that you make great pancakes." Thirteen propped herself up on her elbows and levered herself up to sit up against the headboard. Cameron followed suit. "How much do you remember?"

"Enough."

"Panicking yet? Having self-doubts? Identity crisis?"

"You sound as if you've gone through this before," Cameron smiled. "No, I'm good. I'll save the identity crisis for when House invariably finds out about this and tells anyone willing to listen, which will likely be many people."

"I'm okay about that."

"Me too."

"Does this have to...y'know...mean..."

"I'll think about it. It was fun. Oh, and Remy?"

"Yes?" A little thrill shot through her at the 'Remy.'

"You know I said I was at the bar because of a patient?"

"Vaguely."

Cameron grinned, leaning across and pressing her lips softly against Thirteen's ear, her words whispered into her skin. "I lied."


	29. Murder

**This chapter and the next, Sword, form a two-shot called 'Lie to Me'. Dark themes and a decent amount of cursing. Enjoy. **

**Kara x**

* * *

**29.) Murder**

A man is dead.

Andien Polyi, 37-year-old male, presented with insomnia and delirium. I figured it was a textbook drug addiction case, but when he started twitching like an OCD person in a junkyard, then I had to reconsider my perspective. A long, convoluted process resulted in his eventual diagnosis, and then a much shorter, far simpler process led to him in a body bag and me gone, running for my life, chasing answers.

A man is dead because of me.

But I didn't pull the trigger.

* * *

I _knew_ it was you. Out on the street, right? You catch a glimpse, recognition sears through you, but no, it couldn't have been, must have been mistaken - yet I was right. I saw you. Sitting on a low wall, an unlit cigarette hung between two outstretched fingers; your eyes trained on me as if looking at a familiar cyclone. I mean, most people's eyes were on me. I'm a cripple, for God's sake. But you - I shouldn't have dismissed you. Not the first time and definitely not the second.

And it's all in slow motion now, because I just about remember taking that pill bottle absently out of my pocket, flicking it open, dropping three into my hands and arcing them down my throat, almost dramatically - as if I was expecting an audience.

Which I got. Because you were there, slowly burning away into torrents of toxic smoke, which tracked against my footsteps and followed me back into the hospital; heat flaring in your paces, right in sync with mine. And yet you think you're just, so, unpredictable.

You're...partly wrong.

* * *

Sitting in my office, watching my fellows' lips move but the sound drowned out; can't concentrate, something in my mind telling me I have to run - oh, the irony - so I cycle their syllables in my head until they register. An interesting case, and I use the word sparingly. Diagnose an irrelevant condition, prescribe treatment with an irrelevant name, and lean back in my chair, blanking the non-irrelevant voices inside my head.

Was that the point? Well? Might as well tell me, now it's all set in stone and I'm screaming along the highway towards you. Was that when the plan had started to unfold, hatred bordering on psychosis as heavy and brightening as a drug, that maddened little smile forming when the part of you yelling rationality finally gave up and died? Did you glance through the glass door at him, with the tangled IVs and the daughter curled up in the chair next to him, eyes wide open and staring? No, I won't pretend I cared, but at least I knew.

Did you see his face, or did you look away? Yes, it's important. It always is.

* * *

A few hours after the treatment started, we had a fairly abrupt warning that we may have misdiagnosed when blood started spurting out of his tear ducts. Or maybe it was from his fingernail beds, or his gums, or perhaps it just stayed in his veins and instead his arm muscles spasmed so hard they ripped apart, or he had a silent stroke, or anything, or everything.

Whatever it was, I doubt you care, and that's where we differ. And, of course, on the tiny little sliver of separation in how I popped a pill and you killed a man. Your moral high ground has sunk into a crater. Are those flames flickering at the base?

Are you scared?

* * *

The note. The notenotenotenotenote. Taped innoculously to my computer monitor; scrawled handwriting, no beginning and no signoff. You know, that could be construed as rude. I might mention it at our next encounter, which judging by the blurring-past road signs, is not far off. I'm breaking the speed limit, of course. If a cop stops me I'll give them your number.

I spotted it instantly, of course - when your life's concentrated between four walls, anything different is surprisingly noticeable - but I pretended I hadn't. Gave me time. Time to think, time to reason, time to question. Life's great joys, most of the time. But nothing could have quite prepared me for the words on that page

"Leave the pill bottle on the desk and walk away. You have two remaining."

Two what? Pills? No, I have three. (Yes, I memorised. I'm an addict. Is admitting it some kind of redemption? Apparently, in your eyes.) I swiped the last of the pills, left the empty bottle behind in mere curiosity, then lifted the spare bottle out of the blue vase in the diagnostics office and cheerfully went on my way. Perhaps I was even whistling a tune.

Part of me would like to believe you'd had CCTV trained on the place, but I think we're on the kind of terms now where we know what each other are thinking. Almost, even, friends. Can I call you a friend? After all, I'm so looking forward to our encounter, since it's been so long. Yet not quite long enough, since I know full well you were outside in the corridor, watching me, watching my every move, knowing I'd be too stubborn to follow instructions and too hopelessly complacent to bother turning around and solve my own mystery.

Very metaphorical of you. I'm almost proud.

* * *

Around fifteen minutes later, just around the time where you were leaning up against the toilet wall and frantically scribbling another note, I was in a clinic room, door locked, shutters down. Lockdown. I don't do that for just anything. A note, in vaguely familiar handwriting. I'd glimpsed it, once, perhaps even twice, but only a passing glance, and at the time it was irrelevant. Yet I did, and fuzzy pictures were floating in front of my eyes, desperately trying to sharpen focus. Have you ever had that? Trying to make it all make sense, but what you need's just out of reach? Like answers? Like salvation? Like me?

(You _need_ me. Without me, you're just a killer.)

* * *

The second note was somehow more of a surprise than the first. Few of my eventualities had accounted for a second. Yet, I came back to it taped again to the computer monitor (scribbled on toilet paper. Resourceful, aren't we?) and the bottle torn haphazardly into orange plastic shards. The label, however, had been perfectly lifted off, preserved and fastened to the desk. VICODIN, 500MG. I suppose the capital letters illustrated your point well. Metaphors are fun, aren't they?

"Get rid of all your spare Vicodin into the trash can in the left corner. You have one remaining."

I have to hand it to you, I was strangely curious. So I threw in the spare stash inside the hollow chair leg, and under the plaque. But not the bag under the plant-pot in the balcony outside. That's my emergency-emergency-emergency stash. (Fabricated eventuality; I'm outside on the balcony, the hospital goes into lockdown and my arms and legs spontaneously fall off so I can't knock on the door.)

If I looked there now, I'd find a very distinct fingerprint in the dirt on the clay of the plant-pot. Arches, whirls, loops immortalised in the dust. Your way of telling me the answer, if I was in any way willing to change enough to accept it. But I didn't, because I'm an addict. I am a man addicted to painkillers for reasons that go beyond pain and am unwilling to change that or anything else that may indirectly change that fact.

Wow, I barely even noticed how much better and less hopeless the world's become, on account of me making that confession.

Oh, wait...

* * *

Do you often get people screaming in your ears? Flashing pages, talking fellows, the cacophony of light and noise that surrounds me in every minute of every day is enough to drive you mad, at least at first. But you get used to it. You acclimatise, and soon, it's the absence of the madness and the rush that comes as the shock.

After that second note, I went out onto the rooftop to think, and there was thirty minutes of complete, abject, blissful silence. Not the sound of a phone ringing, or a faint car alarm in the world beneath my feet. Not even a breeze breathing gently in my ears. Silence. Time stopped. The Earth was still.

That's when the fear set in. Paralysing fear. Silence means endings. Silence means lost to the wind and never coming back.

In your case, silence meant calmly walking into my patient's room, glancing at his eyes (awake, I'd venture, but unable to speak or move due to the elaborate series of tubes we'd chained him into) and taking out a needle. Pulling out the plunger an almost imperceptible amount, bringing in about enough air to fill a pinhead-sized container. Bringing it to the light. Maybe you watched him as you did it; his changing expression, from curiosity to mild fear to TERROR to over. I capitalised 'Terror' because that was likely most prevalent, as you plunged the needle into his vein and pressed down that irrelevant millimetre on the syringe.

Drama and convention would tell you that when you kill a man, it happens immediately. He coughs, he clutches desperately at the gaping wound in his chest, he lets out a long, low moan and freezes in time with the last expression on his face - shock and longing. Thirty seconds, a minute at the most. But what you've discovered is that it can be long and drawn-out and messy and extremely unsightly. I know that you know, because I know you watched. Nobody walks away after killing a man. My father didn't, even though Uncle Sam smiled on his murders. You had far less excuse.

Here's how I think it went: (Correct me if my choreography's off or the emotions are a little outside your vision - this is your scene, your colours and characters, and a front-row seat your greatest accolade.)

Andien Polyi lay there, silent and confused, looking at the pinprick in his arm with any emotion ranging from annoyance to mild interest. At this point, his cognitive function would have been normal, or as normal as someone with Morvan's Syndrome as a paraneoplastic complication of renal cell carcinoma could have been; after all, he hadn't slept in three days. Hopefully his brain was just not-fried enough to register two thoughts; 'hey, this hurts' and 'who the hell's that guy over there?' He'd have glanced up, met your eyes, knitted his eyebrows together in a 'what was that for?' universal gesture. You might have smiled, or kept frozen and still, watching, waiting. Perhaps you were unconsciously making the same pose I do when I'm mulling over how to save a patient - weight slightly on one leg, forehead pressed against the glass.

(Yet you had nothing to mull, except perhaps the meaning of life and the inevitability of mortality. I hope this served as a good intellectual exercise for you.)

Before your eyes, his pupils widen a tiny amount and the heart monitor's numbers creep up one, then two, then five and begin to spiral. The corner of his mouth begins to droop downwards of its own accord, being tugged by his spasming muscles, and he notices through the reflection in the glass and tries to bring his hand to his face but his arm stops a few centimetres off the bed and struggles to stay up. At this point, Andien (if you want, I could call him Experiment #1 or The Observation or something similarly detached, you FUCKING BASTARD - oh, sorry, was that rude?)

Have you ever heard the stroke acronym off the adverts? FAST. Face, arms, speech, time. (Wow, I feel so smart. Almost like I'm a real life doctor!) So at this moment, even though it's implausible due to the fact that he had a rather sizeable tube inserted into his throat at the time, I'd like to believe he tried to say something to you. Perhaps a "What have you done?" or "What's happening to me?" Maybe, just maybe, a "You've killed me!" for dramatic effect. Yes, killed. Not culled, not terminated, not erased from existence - killedmurderedmadedie. I know you. You're rationalising. You're trying to convince yourself that no, I'm not a murderer, I haven't done anything wrong, the means are to a good end. But here's the delicious part; whatever end happens, you are still a murderer, and Andrew Polyi is still in a body bag. Wait, was that his name? Andrei. Andia. That's the beauty of it! It doesn't matter anymore! He's DEAD!

Now we come to 'time', and oh, sorry, you've only paid for maximum ten minutes of airtime, so we're going to have to bring this heartbreaking little play to an end. See, that beautifully formed little bubble you injected into his veins (it's amazing what you can gauge from a quick internet search when you're out of your mind, isn't it? Hope you erased your history) has made a lovely little voyage around his bloodstream, though rather too quick for its liking. If it had been the one in charge, it would have camped out for a few days near the liver, done some watersports through the colon, sunbathed near the surface of the skin, paid homage to his screwed-up kidneys, really seen the sights, y'know? Yet, as does time and the car I'm sitting in, blood speeds callously on, until the bubble discovers that wait, I really should've gone on Atkins before this holiday, because this cerebral artery is looking a particularly tight squeeze and oh, damn it, I'm stuck. Wow, that's an impressive blood buildup there. Guess I've caused a bit of a ruckus here. What an inconvenience.

Meanwhile, the brain cells blocked off by this air embolus (sorry if you were getting really into the Story of the Pretty Bubble's Holiday, but life sucks and you're a fucking murderer) are slowly becoming more and more starved of oxygen, whilst the blood ferociously tries to beat through the bubble but it's just sitting there obliviously. And, as Andien Polyi stares ahead in shock, the brain cells begin to die. One by irrelevant one, but as a group it becomes surprisingly relevant. Nobody around to call a code, of course, except you, and you're too busy enjoying your perfectly choreographed spectacle. His brain is dying as he looks on, along with everything he's ever loved or hated or thought passable or glanced at and every memory of his daughter and his family and every idle conversation with an acquaintance he's ever had about the meaning of life and is the universe infinite and which colour of olive is best because I prefer the black ones and that algebra test he still remembers from when he was nine because he was so nervous he didn't sleep and yet he still managed a 98 and beauty and emotion and the mundane and light and colour and noise and black and whether he's scared of dying and whether it matters and everything's flying past exactly this fast so I'm awfully sorry if you can't keep track because this man's lived 37 years in this crazy fucked-up world that has me and you in it and would be better off without the both of us and his mind has built up so much and is watching it all crumble because of a bubble and a syringe and the man outside and that I popped a pill and didn't read a note and that I was born and that humanity existed and therefore so did mistakes -

He forces as many memories as possible to fly past his eyes, before his breaths still and he falls backwards onto his pillow. (I'm assuming he's seized up from the shock.) He in no way looks peaceful; his eyes are open and wide; and you let your eyelids blink once, as if a camera shutter to let the image keep, to spur you on to greater things. And you leave, knowing it'll be at least thirty seconds before the same image stains someone else's eyes.

Was I close? I hope I was close.

_I hope you die inside._

* * *

They think it's me, of course. My patient, my medication. Must have screwed up somehow. Must have. Maybe it was those pesky pills, clouding his judgement. Hasn't it all worked out perfectly for you?

Clearly not, because I'm hurtling along the interstate at a hundred miles an hour to where I know in my heart you'll be. Because Andien Polyi (I read his name off a file before I got in my car, because now it matters) didn't die for the hell of it, he died to send me a message. I got it, thanks. Another note might be more desirable next time, but you knew (rightly) that no amount of notes sent would force me to read them.

Now I'm going to come and get my answers, and I will use whatever methods I have to. I'm surprisingly resourceful at times. For instance, I have three bottles of Vicodin sewed into the lining of my pockets because I know when I enter the room you're in, I'm not going to be leaving until this is done or one of us is dead.

_I'm coming for you, Michael Tritter._

_Your move._


	30. Sword

**26.) Sword**

Outside the abandoned remains of what was once a drug rehabilitation centre, all was quiet and still, with the flickers of the dying streetlights mirroring the softly burning stars against the black, swirling cloth of the sky. But inside, a man was standing in the doorway, with a cane that could break glass and a stare that could melt steel, finding he'd found what he was looking for. Or rather who.

"Hello, House."

House nudged the door shut behind him with the tiniest amount of pressure, so it didn't quite click closed, and turned to face the man standing in the centre of the empty, barren room. "Tritter."

"It's been so long." Tritter was smiling. House couldn't quite work out if it was the smile of a piranha sensing the splash of a moronic diver, or the smile of a man who knows he's caught and doesn't care. And that was important - it meant control. It meant whoever had the edge in this screwed-up power dynamic they'd always had.

"Didn't you get my Christmas card?" House shut his eyes instinctively as Tritter briskly walked towards him, only to hear him press the door shut completely and return to where he was previously standing. Damn. That was his plan P for Psychopathic Murder Rage - run like hell.

"Can't say I did."

House fake-tutted and rolled his eyes. "Post nowadays...so unreliable with non-existent packages. There should really be an express system."

"So," Tritter gestured towards him, "what have I done to deserve the honour of such an unexpected visit?"

"Oh, I was in the neighbourhood, had some time on my hands...I haven't got a case at the moment, on account of that patient of mine you killed." House brought his eyes up from the dusty, concreted floor to bore into Tritter's like vengeful lasers through cornflower glass. He met the gaze without so much as blinking.

"You work quickly, for a narcotics addict."

"I'm practiced at it, considering my deadlines usually have body bags as a factor. Now, how are we going to play this? I doubt there are rule books for these situations. Though that would be a brilliant idea. Screw Dungeons and Dragons, we need step-by-step instructions for choreographed fight scenes."

"Have you called the police?" Tritter interrupted. Unsurprisingly, he did not look worried.

"The cops do not exactly shine on what they perceive to be the incoherent mutterings of a drug addict, especially against one of their own. It's just you and me, and I'm armed," he twitched his hand and jerked the cane off the floor about a centimetre, "unlike you. So, I have a slight advantage, balanced out by the fact that I'm a handicap, making this a fair fight."

"Not...quite." It was only at that moment that House noticed that Tritter had been holding his hands behind his back, fingers knotted together as if concealing something. Apparently so, anyway, because he smoothly brought his hands upwards and around to the front, slipping a huge sword - yes, _sword_ - with a beautifully deadly tapered end to where House could see. The hilt was gilded and sparkled in the faint twilight glow. "I may outrank you here," he dryly observed.

_Fuck._

"Yes, but what you don't know is that my cane transforms into an AK-47!" House held up his cane like a gun dramatically, pointing the end at Tritter's head and holding it there for a few moments before dejectedly putting it back down. "Damn, that never works. I should've never paid $300 extra for the Machine-Gun Package, especially when the 'bullets' were made out of styrof -"

Before he could finish, pressure at his throat and the startling coldness of metal stunned his words. Tritter had stepped forward and placed the tip of the blade against his neck.

"Quit the wisecracks," Tritter hissed savagely, pointing with his free hand towards a cobweb-laden corridor, "and fucking _move_."

* * *

House wasn't entirely sure how long it had been; it was dark outside, but he got the impression that here, it was going to be dark whether it was midday or midnight. A panicked thought shot through his mind and he scrabbled desperately at the cloth of his trousers, feeling for the seams in the lining, his heart sinking through the floor when he felt the neat scissor-cut and the absence of the three comforting bottle-sized bulges. His emergency plan lost to the wind, and he left alone in an abandoned room.

He leaned forwards to try and see if one had just slipped further into the lining of his trousers, desperately clinging to hope, but after bending for only a second his head snapped back and he stared around, confused, as his sedative-addled brain tried to register the situation he was in. Cold metal was against his skin again, but not the horrifyingly gorgeous smoothness and the clean edges of the sword. No, this was ugly metal - marred by rust and bent carelessly into ringlets that shoddily interlocked around his ankles. Shackles. He was shackled to the wall. His legs, his wrists, and - he bent forward again to make sure and felt his Adam's apple bruise against the thin edges of the chain links - his neck, too. The chain was draped across his awkwardly lying form, half-sitting and half-standing, stooped against the wall. A single link was resting in the scarred pit left in his ruined thigh. Oh, the irony.

"Mornin'." A slightly, crazily cheerful voice rang out into the room, the bare expanses of brick wall sending echoes through his head and making him wince. "Isn't it a beautiful day today? Shame there's no windows through which to enjoy it." Tritter reached into the brown paper bag he was holding, pulled out some kind of pre-prepared panini. "You're not a vegetarian, are you?"

The absurdity of the question hadn't quite hit him. "...No."

"Of course not. If you can justify screwing over all manner of humans' lives, why should the rest of the animal kingdom be exempt?" Tritter tossed him the packaged panini, which House didn't even glance at. He just lifted his head and gave Tritter the most undisguised look of hatred that he had for years.

"What exactly is the point of this?" House croaked.

"Oh, I believe you already know that."

And House did. A large part of him just really didn't want to believe it. "You're forcing me to detox. You're going to keep me chained to this wall, without my pills, until I either die or I'm weaned off the meds. That's why you killed my patient - to get me here."

"Bingo. As well as the inescapable fact that if a possible ten years in jail on drug charges doesn't motivate you, possible life in prison for murder just might."

"You're insane. Not just that - you're evil. I'm an ass, but you're evil - and yet you're trying to give me moral guidance? You're mental!"

"You and I both know that's not true," Tritter replied simply. "This is a means to a universally good end. If you keep being addicted to drugs, they will result in people dying. Plural, as opposed to the singular of your patient that died. I'm saving lives here, on a collective basis. Yours, and those of your patients."

"I am not a worse doctor because of the pills. I'm better. When I'm not on the pills, I'm in pain; withdrawn; I'm -"

"Nobody's better on drugs. They only think they are." A fire had appeared in Tritter's eyes; vicious, fascinating, powerful, searing. Like he wasn't just striking a raw nerve, but biting into it with a hacksaw.

"How do you know? I'm in pain. That can't - if I need the drugs, then I should be able to have as many as I need which won't fry my internal organs -"

"I had a partner. Ten years ago. His name was -"

"Oh, God, spare us the backstory," House groaned. "I have enough of that with my fellows." Tritter wordlessly took out the sword, flashed the blade against the light, replaced it and continued.

"His name was Toby, and he became a drug addict after watching a younger officer, our friend, die from a stray bullet in a shootout over a drug raid. Post-traumatic stress disorder, though he didn't want to give it a name. His shrink gave him antidepressants, which didn't work, so he gave him stronger ones, which were better. But Toby quickly discovered that the stronger antidepressants, along with a few shots and suicidal levels of codeine, was the most effective method of making the pain go away. Not just the pain about her death," he laughed mirthlessly, "no - all pain, ever. Nothing mattered. And he loved that, I could see it in his eyes. He loved not caring.

"Fast-forward four years, and we were working on a case of an eight-year-old girl who would've appeared, by the style of the abduction and the fact that her family were rich and overprotective, to have been kidnapped for ransom. Yet the parents hadn't received any ransom demands and they were starting to become hysterical. I always dealt with that better than Toby did, so I took the family outside, and left Toby by the family's mobile phone."

Normally at this point in backstories, the signs of long-underlying grief and pain begin to resurface. Glimmering tears in the eyes. A lump in the throat; a croakiness in the voice, like they were tired or ill; tensing, clenching their fists, crossing their legs or arms, gritting their teeth. But Tritter was just standing there, perfectly relaxed and calm except for the terrifying fire in his gaze.

"What I didn't know was that Toby was out of his mind. He'd taken a new combination - his antidepressants, alcohol and some kind of hallucinogenic. So when the phone rang, he probably figured it was part of a hallucination. Or didn't. I don't have a fucking clue. But he didn't answer it; he didn't even recall, afterwards, ever getting the call. It was the kidnappers calling to negotiate a ransom. After the third call, they gave up, shot the girl through the head and escaped. They committed five more kidnappings of underage girls over the next three years before they were finally caught. Two of those abducted were murdered; of the three who survived, two were sexually assaulted, and one committed suicide not long after."

His words tolled like bell chimes against the walls, the significance making the room seem even more hollow, the harshness grating. House just sat there, listening, expressionless. "I'm a doctor, not a police officer. It's completely different. Even if I were to somehow make a mistake, it wouldn't -"

"Are you actually going to tell me a misdiagnosed eight-year-old can't die just as slowly and painfully as one that's been knifed? I'm not negotiating." The coloured flame in his eyes flared and burned. "Lie to me, House. Go on, lie to me. Tell me I'm wrong, I'm nonsensical, you're infallible. Do that and I'll let you go. Simple as that."

House met his look for a second, then tore his gaze away and snatched up the panini, tearing off the wrapper and ripping a chunk off with his hands, bringing it to his lips.

Tritter smiled.

* * *

"Gnn, nyuh - God - aargh..."

Guttural noises brutally forced their way out of House's throat as the muscles in his leg tightened, feeling spasms of pure, white-hot agony shoot through the scar. Sweat was pouring from his forehead, limbs tangled and bent, eyes brilliant blue against bloodshot red.

It had been 36 hours in Hell's depths.

"Please," he whispered towards the ceiling for the fifteenth time that night, "if you're there, please let me die."

He took the callous silence as a 'no,' and collapsed into a shivering heap, gritting his teeth and willing himself not to cry.

* * *

A dishevelled, haunted-looking House lay stooped against the wall, gaunt, with sallow, stubbled cheeks. Untouched paninis lay vacuum-packed at his feet; returned there by Tritter after he'd seized up and involuntarily kicked them across the room. Despite that, though, the pain was starting to get better. Slightly. By painstaking millimetre.

Tritter walked into the room, stooping to scoop up the older paninis, and House made a point of meeting his eyes. "Let me go," he mouthed.

"Not until you've finished detoxing," Tritter replied curtly, turning on his heel and starting to leave until a 'beep' caught them both by surprise.

"What is that?"

In answer, House reached tentatively into his pocket and pulled out his pager. The text on the tiny screen made his sunken eyes glitter.

"You have to let me go," he murmured. Anything above a whisper jarred his head, as well as almost everything else. "My fellows have a new patient. She's dying and unless you send me back to the hospital, you'll have another death on your conscience."

"You're lying." Tritter sounded uncertain. In answer, House held out the pager pointedly, and Tritter bent to read the words on the screen.

"Your fellows are smart. They'll be able to deal with it."

"And you want to bet a girl's life on that?"

Now Tritter looked uncertain, too. "If I let you go, what's to stop you from finding one of your innumerable number of Vicodin stashes and binging on it?"

"Absolutely nothing," House replied bluntly.

Tritter thought for a second.

"All right," he sighed, fumbling for a key in his pocket. "You can go back to help her, and you can have one more bottle of pills." He retrieved a dulled silver key and a familiar orange plastic bottle, like greeting an old, parasitic friend. "But that's it."

House didn't reply. He just watched balefully as Tritter undid his restraints, then struggled to stand up without his cane and with the cramps in his muscles. Tritter went to fetch his cane and brought it to him.

"Oh, and just so we're clear; if I see you taking Vicodin again, ever, I will kill more than just your patient."

"I don't doubt it."

* * *

"House!"

"Where the heck have you been?"

"I was worried sick -"

"Sick leave," House cut them off. "Hooker-related back injury. Had to happen eventually. Now, what's wrong with our patient?"

The three fellows all looked at him, stunned. House rolled his eyes. "I understand that your lives are centred around me, but you three really have to get a hobby or get laid or something. Is anyone going to tell me what the patient's symptoms are?"

"You look..." Cameron struggled to finish her sentence.

"Like shit," Chase helpfully added.

"Like you did when you last detoxed."

House theatrically pulled out the already half-empty pill bottle, downing a tiny white oval and feeling the throbbing pain in his leg subside a little more. "See? Not detoxing. Now can we do our jobs?"

Foreman shook his head, reaching for the file. "Nine-year-old female, uncontrollable bleeding, incontinence..."

As he spoke, House glanced at the shackle marks still bit into his wrists, and thought.

* * *

"So, I hear you saved your patient."

House looked up and his eyes widened, fingernails digging into the arms of the chair. Tritter was standing in the doorway, grinning broadly. "Stand back. I actually do have an AK-47 cane this time."

"I'm just checking up on you. Had any more pills?"

"None apart from the bottle you gave me, but it's only been a day since I finished that."

"Oh, that? That was Vitamin C. A little placebo-effect tool."

"I know that," House looked at him witheringly, "I took the damn drug for years, I think I just about know what it tastes like."

"You reckon you'll be able to do it? Forever?"

"Maybe."

Tritter gave him a look that told him all he needed to know, and swiftly departed back into the corridor. He took three steps before he heard the voices and froze.

"Michael Tritter, you are under arrest for alleged murder..."

The corridor was swarming with police officers and hospital rooms cordoned off with neon yellow tape, an officer wrenching his hands behind his back and fastening them into handcuffs. Tritter just stood there, almost shellshocked and uncomprehending.

As he was being led out, House sauntered out of his office and quickly limped up to Tritter, inclining his head and whispering a bitter breeze in his smooth baritone;

_"He was my patient."_

And that's all he needed to know.

* * *

Tritter sat in the witness stand of the busy courtroom, feeling the synthetic material of the prison uniform, tight against his skin. He'd never quite expected to see it from this side for this reason, but it was still intriguing.

Waiting for the prosecution to collect their evidence, Tritter's eyes scanned the crowd for anyone of interest. Reporters, the man's family, hospital representatives - _oh._

House was sitting nonchalantly in the stands, popping pills from an orange plastic bottle and looking right at him.

Vitriol seared through Tritter's veins, punching red-hot anger through his heart, the flames threatening to consume him; biting into his flesh, setting every nerve on edge because he'd done this all for a purpose that wasn't and not only that, he was rubbing it in his fucking face -

Wait.

House gave him one last, long look, hateful yet curious, and took out his signature orange plastic bottle again. Turned it so the label showed and held it up to the light, slouching back in his seat and quirking an eyebrow, waiting for him to notice.

Tritter squinted, trying to just about make out the letters, until he caught the right angle and everything suddenly made sense.

For written on the bottle, in fuzzy block capitals, were the two beautiful words

- "VITAMIN C."

* * *

I've done it.

I sacrificed my life and another and the world as it spins, but I've done it.

And that's all that ever really mattered.


	31. Time

**I actually started on this chapter four days ago, but it got sidetracked into 'Of Love, Syringes and Gang Symbols'. Here's the real chapter.**

**Kara x**

* * *

**34.) Time**

At 2 a.m., most sleep. But House and his team aren't 'most' by any standards.

* * *

"Damien?"

"Emmy? Why can't I see you? The computer's being crappy again -"

"No," Thirteen laughed, "you've clicked 'Voice Call' instead of 'Video Call'. I'll call again, and this time you'll know what button to press."

She closed the call and brought Skype up again, buzzing from the sound of her brother's voice, sounding so...normal. His usual technologically brain-dead self. Although, a slight undercurrent of worry hovered underneath the joy, _he's started calling me Emmy again. Is that because it's a nickname, or is he worried he's going to choke on the 'r'?_

"Shit," Damien exclaimed again, and Thirteen saw he'd clicked the wrong thing again. "My hand, it just -"

"I know. It's alright, bro, I'll call you again -"

"Actually, it's okay. Leave it like this. I like just hearing your voice."

"Well...if you want," Thirteen replied uncertainly. "Are you sure it's not because -"

"No, Emmy. My dashing good looks are exactly the same as they were last time we spoke. I'm not drooping, or twitching, or any of that crap."

"You mean even that spasm by your left eye's gone?"

"Yep."

"Wow, those meds are doing wonders for you."

"Emmy, I talk to you about once every three months. I have an hour before they throw me off the computer. You really want to talk about The Bleep?"

"You have a point."

(That was a private joke they used to share when they were kids - their father refused to explain the medical intricacies of Huntington's to two preteens, so at the ages of six and eight they were trying to work out a word for it; they knew a surprising number of swear words, but none seemed to fit; until Damien theorised that it was like that computer problem everyone has where it starts randomly bleeping and everyone freaks out and presses a bunch of random buttons but it doesn't help and it won't stop until you rip the plug out. So Huntington's became The Bleep. It took them ten more years to realise exactly how accurate the metaphor was.)

"So, how's Dad and -" Thirteen stopped herself.

"Dad's fine. He's started a vegetable garden and bought a tiny, yappy dog. I told him he was too old for a mid-life crisis."

Thirteen stifled a laugh.

"God, I miss you."

"I know. I miss you too. It's lonely in England. Too much bloody rain and miserable people."

"Oh, we have our fair share of miserable people over here too." Thirteen thought of House, her colleagues...well, everyone, really. "And besides, they have great healthcare, and Birch House is good for you."

"We said we wouldn't talk about the Bleep..."

"Right. Sorry."

"And to answer the second part of the question you didn't ask me because you thought it'd hurt my feelings, Clara is also doing well. She invited me out for lunch a few weeks ago."

"Oh, really? That's nice."

"Yeah...coincidentally, my spasms started acting up at the exact same time."

Thirteen giggled. "You're horrible to her."

"She's irritating. I don't give a crap that Dad remarried," _liar, _Thirteen thought to herself, "but he could've at least married someone who doesn't call me 'Damy.'"

"Seriously? That's horrifying." A yawn suddenly erupted from nowhere and Thirteen tried to block it with her hand, failing miserably.

"You're tired? Work that stressful?"

"I'm a doctor, Damien. Work is murder. And I love it."

"Oh, I forgot for a second that we're in different time zones now. I'm not keeping you from work, am I? I don't want your grumpy-ass boss to bitch at you about not talking to your headcase brother during office hours."

"No...you're not."

"What time is it over there?"

Thirteen stifled another yawn just in time and covered over the annoying little clock in the corner of the screen, merrily announcing that it had just turned 2 in the morning. "Um...not sure. About seven in the evening, I think."

"Are you lying to me?'

"No."

"I could use Google to check. Google never lies..."

She slumped onto the desk in defeat. "Alright, fine, you got me. It's eleven o'clock."

"Emmy..."

"One hundred and eighty minutes past eleven o'clock."

"That's better. Next time, tell me if I call you at some inhuman time. How is work, by the way?"

"Our patient exploded today. I'm not kidding."

"That sounds so cool!"

"No, it wasn't. It was horrifying, traumatic...okay, yes, I admit it, it was really cool. And I'm allowed to say that, because she's alive."

"Good to know."

"I can't tell you how many times I've heard today, "Thirteen, is it true your patient went boom?" Like I'd make it up."

"...Thirteen?"

"Oh, yeah," she blushed. "That's what people at work call me. It's because...it's complicated, actually."

"But that's the unlucky number! It's a bad omen!"

"No more than anything else. Actually," she mused, "I'm pretty sure that's relative. The myth depends on if you believe in luck."

"Well, I guess if anyone in this screwed-up family has luck, it's you. After all, you don't have the Bleep -"

The screen theatrically snapped to black before he could say anymore. "Crap," Thirteen yelled, looking over the computer monitor for what she'd accidentally done until she saw the dead streetlights outside. Power cut. What great fucking timing.

She lay back in her chair, waiting for the power to come back on so she could talk to Damien again, feeling guilt slide along her spine; sending shockwaves up her frayed nervous system.

Somehow, she'd found lately that she felt like the most hopeful pessimist, the most rational mental case, the most alive dead person in the entire universe. She wondered how long this could possibly hold for. Probably a few days.

_(Then again, fate works out funny sometimes.)_

* * *

Chase smiled wearily as the girl in the bed cracked her eyes open. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Harriet," he grinned.

"...What happened? Another operation?"

"Yep. Your spinal fluid had a backup."

"Say no more." Harriet waved a hand at him. "I want to be a hairdresser, for God's sake. I have no room in my simple little head for any of the medical mumbo-jumbo. Have you fixed whatever was wrong with me?"

Chase bit his lip. "Kind of."

"Wow, I'm used to that response. Chiari malformation should be renamed 'The No Straight Answers Disease'. Every time they tell me 'provided there's no complications and the sun's shining outside and Mercury is in your third house and we get heads on this coin toss there'll be no more surgeries'. Then boom! I fall on the ground, more surgeries."

"It happens." Chase smiled ruefully at her, wondering how some people get sick even when they deserve so much better. Guess the universe just likes screwing with us.

"How long did it take?"

"Four hours. You've been out for eight. You collapsed at a hockey game, remember?"

"Damn it, didn't beat my personal record. I hope we at least won the game." She looked up at him, eyes suddenly shining. "You've stayed here with me for four hours after you cut into me, you poor sap? Thank you."

"We will fix this, Harriet. It'll just take a little longer."

"I'm sure. In the meantime, please could you grab me some water, Peppy Australian Doctor Who's Taken A Scalpel To My Neck Five Times?"

"I think it's seven," he corrected her, eyes twinkling. "And my friends call me Dr. Chase."

"That's easier to say."

* * *

"WE NEED A CRASH CART IN HERE!"

Chase dropped the water cup without thinking and sprinted back to Harriet's room, whose heart rate was now at 200 - _oh God, v-fib, oh God_ - and who was clearly struggling to breathe as a nurse sprinted off.

"Harriet! What happened?! You were fine!"

"Can't..." she gasped desperately for oxygen, like trying to suck air through a pillow. "Chest..."

"Charging 180," the nurse yelled, taking the defibrillators and forcing Chase to leap out of the way to grab them. "Clear!" Chase announced, shocking Harriet, who convulsed slightly, but no change in heart rate.

"Charging 250...clear!"

"300!"

"360!"

Harriet stilled, and her heart switched from a buzz to terrifyingly still. Without even thinking, Chase discarded the defibrillators and began steadily, quickly pumping her chest. "How could this happen?" he muttered to himself.

"Pushing 2 cc's adrenaline," the nurse yelled, but Chase barely even heard her. All he could see was the still, cold, peaceful face and her words ringing in his ears and how she wanted to be a hairdresser and had two brothers she hated and one she liked and was addicted to double stuff Oreos and had a boyfriend her parents didn't know about and said she liked coming round to an Australian accent -"

"LIVE, for fuck's sake, LIVE!" he screamed, pounding her chest harder.

* * *

She didn't.

* * *

They'd cut her open afterwards, found that her heart was basically shot. Cardiomyopathy. Genetics had really not dealt her a good hand. She was fifteen years old; died at 2:49 a.m., with her parents in another room and her brother in another state, thinking of hockey and how she couldn't breathe. There was nothing he could have done.

_Try telling that to my conscience._

Chase felt a hot, stinging tear track its way down his cheek and slip off the edge of his chin, staining his lab coat. He fiddled for his phone, leaning against the wall outside the OR. He wasn't sure which contact he was looking for, but he knew when he saw it.

"...Hello?"

The sound of her voice was all it took to break him; he began to cry, sobs racking his body, tears blurring the outside world into shifting colours and stabbing pain.

"Cameron, it's me. Can we talk?"

"Are you alright?"

"No."

* * *

"It's okay, Rachel, it's okay..."

An exhausted Cuddy collapsed back onto the floor in surrender as Rachel started screaming again. "Honey, you have the flu, it'll get better soon, just lie down, yelling will only make it worse..."

The only response she got was yet more yells, cutting through the fatigue to stab into her rattled, sleep-deprived mind. She could feel a migraine tensing behind her eyes.

"Rachel, please -"

"NO!"

"Just be quiet for a second, I'll get you some water."

"NO!"

"Do you want me to turn up the fan?"

"NO!"

"No what?!"

"NO NO NO NO NO!" Rachel was now near hysteria, clutching onto her stuffed animals with a vice-like grip and hurling them around. The carpet began to swim in front of her eyes.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"

Oh, God.

Rachel murmured something that sounded like 'how' then fell back into her pillows. "What was that, Rach?"

"I. Want. Houssssse."

"You want your Barbie Dream House? Here, I'll go get it -"

"No, silly. Other House."

"We only have the one house, honey." Cuddy tried to play dumb, but she could feel her chest tightening, her head throbbing.

"Funny House, with the big pointy stick. I want House!"

_Shit, shit, shit._

"He's busy."

"Too busy for me? He said he liked me." Rachel's little face crumpled. "Does he not like me anymore?"

"No, no, Rachel," Cuddy quickly rectified. God, how could she explain their mess of a break-up to a toddler, when she could barely explain it to herself? "House...doesn't like me. That's why he's not here."

"Of course he likes you. You hug him on there. At night-time." She pointed to the nearby sofa. "He likes you a lot."

'Hug.' Right. Cuddy resolved to get a lock on Rachel's door that locked from the outside. "He used to like me, but he doesn't anymore. That's just how it works, sometimes."

Rachel pulled a sad face. "But he doesn't like you. He can still see me!"

Cuddy felt something jagged pierce her heart and twist. "Sorry, honey, but that's how it works. We come as a package deal."

"Okay, mommy."

Rachel scrambled back onto her pillows, her hot little forehead pressed into the cool fabric, contrasted with Cuddy lying awkwardly on the itchy carpet. "I still want House," she whispered sleepily.

Cuddy rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling. Unhappy thoughts flitted through her mind.

"Me too, honey. Me too."

* * *

House lay back in his chair, fiddling with the tennis ball and thinking to himself. It had long since gone dark outside, but he couldn't quite bring himself to leave. "It just doesn't make any sense," he sighed.

"Moping over your dead patient?"

House turned to see Wilson leaning against the door, pushing it open; holding what looked to be a heap of patient files in his arms. "I thought that was my job."

"She's not dead," House replied through gritted teeth. "Now get out, the smell of caring's distracting me."

"How is she not dead?!" Wilson's eyebrows shot up and he dropped the stack of papers, cursing to himself as he stooped to pick them up. "Her aorta split! Enough blood hit the walls in the operating room to re-enact the prom scene from Carrie! Or half of the Saw franchise!"

"I know. I was there. Good thing I have one of those people on my team...the scalpel-y annoying people with power complexes...surgeon, that's it." House shot him a withering look. "Now I'm trying to work out _why_ her aorta split. And I think I have a fairly good excuse to not help you with those."

"You wouldn't be helping me even if you weren't a cripple," Wilson muttered. "House, go home. It's two in the morning, you're not going to get anything done here."

"Do you even know me? Epiphanies don't work to a schedule. Aristotle got his 'Eureka' in a bathtub; who's to say I won't get mine-"

"-Sitting in the same office for hours on end? No. It's variety, interacting with people...that's what gets you your answers. Plus, there's alcohol back in the loft. Getting paralytically drunk might help your thought process. Not to mention I don't feel like staying sober either."

"Hmm...maybe you do know me." House sighed and put down the tennis ball. "I've heard worse ideas. By the way, was the date that bad?"

"What date?" Wilson looked surprised, but quickly composed his expression. Too late, though, and he knew it.

"The date you just went on, and are trying to bury yourself in random paperwork and liquor to forget. I'm guessing either heroin addict, spent the entire evening talking about her collection of Spongebob Squarepants memorabilia, or has a disproportionate amount of facial hair. Possibly all three, which I wouldn't put past your luck."

"I...wouldn't know. She stood me up."

"Ouch. Well, maybe it was a misunderstanding," House reasoned. "There's got to be more than one HunkyDoc69 floating around."

"House..." Wilson averted his gaze, but he knew he was still blushing.

"I hope they gave you free breadsticks."

"No, I just got a lot of glares for taking up a table. So I left, bought a calzone from a food stand, ate the calzone, looked around, realised I have no life, came back here, and judging by the thoroughly discontented noises my digestive tract is making, will soon regurgitate said calzone. So yeah, I'm having about as good a day as the Amazing Exploding Patient you've got wired up next door."

"Dating sites are a crock anyway. I mean, you turn up expecting Carmen Electra and you end up with Are-Men Electra. As in, she's a -"

"I get it," Wilson hissed, finally scooping up the last of the papers and plonking them heavily onto the nearby chair. "And it wasn't from a dating site."

"Really? Oh god," House sighed, "please don't tell me a prostitute stood you up..."

"No!"

"Well, it was bound to happen eventually. I hope you didn't pay in advance."

"There's a reason people don't like you."

"Mommy told me they were jealous," House deadpanned.

"She lied. And it...it was Cassie."

"I don't know a Cassie." House racked his brains, then his mouth dropped open. _"No."_

"Yes."

_"No."_

"I'm afraid so, yes."

"Your _cousin_?"

Wilson did a double-take. "Wait, what? No. The new immunology attending. You're sick, you know that?"

"Don't lie to me. I saw you making eyes at her at that family reunion."

"There is something seriously, fundamentally wrong with you."

"I'll need to start a bet going on how many fingers your first kid's going to have."

Wilson sighed, and for a second House felt a pang of guilt because he looked more than tired - he looked drained of all energy, all his normal irritating peppiness, all will to stay conscious. The spark in his eyes was dulled, replaced by the pale reflection of the full moon through the windows. "House, I want to go home."

"If you want, we could both take my motorbike."

"Me, with my arms around your waist, wearing a 'helmet' consisting largely of duct tape and blind luck, on that fluorescent orange deathcycle? Sounds like a great idea. Tell you what, why don't I rig up a few bear traps for us to jump into when we get home? It'll be fun!" Sarcasm laced his words as he walked over to the door, leaving the papers in a lone stack on the table.

"You're not going to take them?"

"House, I am not having those files anywhere near us when we get drunk. At best, you'll accidentally knock them into the fire. At worst, they'll end up smeared with lipstick, unidentifiable bodily fluids, and you'll have drawn a giant penis on the front cover of one of them."

"Really? That's the worst scenario you can engineer with us two drunk? Your imagination isn't what it used to be. I can imagine much worse than that. Let me elaborate -"

"Please," Wilson winced at the thought, "don't."

* * *

Time passes. The world wakes up; we watch it blossom. The sky brightens; we see it spark. The sun falls; we witness it die.

We are here alone - the watchers, the waiters, the never-hesitators. Those who sacrifice our own lives to give others back the chance to screw up their own. As heart valves explode, neurons misfire, lungs are crushed; we're here to forget about the Earth, neglect the ground beneath our feet as we fly to help our patients. We are doctors. Watchmen of the Earth.

And whilst they sleep, it's us who keep it spinning.

(Except House. He's passed out in the bathtub. Again.)


	32. Scars

**33.) Scars**

Your mother has locked you out of the house. Again.

It's not like you had a burning desire to be in the house in the first place, but now a heated room and a pillow to scream into seem infinitely preferable to the paralysing cold out here, and the wind twisting through the heather your head is resting on. If you sat up, you'd be able to catch your neighbour's eye; maybe mouth something as simple as 'help me'; and all of this would be over...

But you keep quiet and keep your head down, for your sanity's sake. What do you know, anyway? Maybe this is how things are supposed to be.

Maybe you're just not one who will ever be able to help.

(Maybe you're just destined to spend your whole life trying.)

* * *

It's raining.

The clouds have been melting together since early this morning, and now there are no discernible gaps; just a giant, formless grey mass hurling hate -laced hailstones at passersby. The raindrops would sparkle, if there was a sun to light them with. As it is, they retain their form for a split second before dying in a tiny explosion into your face, melding together, an icy second skin against painfully bare arms. They punch through the newspapers over the old man's head; he stirs on his park bench bed and gives a heavy sigh. Their corpses shatter against windscreens, leaving wet streaks against the glass, as beautiful as flickered tongues of paint lit against a blank canvas. A single flower bends and wavers in its resolve as nature beats them into the floor, yelling into petal ears, can you resist me? Are you strong enough? Are you special, or will you break just like the others did? The delicate sepals buckle under its silent taunts and are soon swept away in the flood.

The way it's battering you, you wonder if you'll be next.

Knock the door, once, twice, thrice. Ring the bell, even though it doesn't work and you know it hasn't worked in ten years. Open the letterbox, hear the faint sounds of news commentary murmuring softly back through the hallway. Still no movement.

"Mum? I'm honestly really sorry that I went out without telling you, but if you let me come back in I can explain."

Silence, except the hum of television speakers.

"Mum? It's kind of raining really bad out here."

A vague murmur. You clatter the letterbox, but it does no good.

"MUM! DO YOU WANT ME TO GET PNEUMONIA? FINE! I'LL JUST SIT OUT HERE AND WAIT TO DIE, ALONE AND AFRAID OUTSIDE IN THE RAIN, UNLOVED AND UNWANTED—"

"...Mum?" Still no answer, but the cheery newsreader's voice seems to get discernibly louder, as it annouces a coming thunderstorm. She's turning up the volume. This is not good. This is _really_ not good.

"Okay, that pneumonia threat is starting to look a lot more realistic now, Mum..."

After a last slam of the letterbox and a hopeless stint of banging against her window, the response to which is swiftly drawn curtains, you give up trying to get back inside. You're not nearly stupid enough to try and climb over the fence; pneumonia is slightly better than breaking your head when you land on the concrete on the other side (which you will) and she'll just keep you in the back garden for hours on end, anyway.

Like it or not, you're about to go for a walk into the eye of a thunderstorm.

* * *

The lonely cobblestone path by the canal is suitably slippery, dangerous and unoccupied. You feel a surge of rebellion and direct your footsteps towards the pathway. _I'm outside in a thunderstorm. Fuck it, I'm invincible._

Though after three precarious steps you remember that pesky little human trait called 'mortality' and grip the rail tightly with frozen white hands, blushed strawberry red on the palms and fingers with the cold, painful and raw and exhilarating.

Fact is, the canal and the streets seem remarkably similar at the moment. Both raging and deserted, and as the sky is metamorphosing from its mild grey to a simmering black splitting at the seams with drumroll thunder and angry electricity, the world feels on the brink of something. The air crackling with suspense for something. Something you want to be here to see, even if it's the last thing you see.

_Won't it be funny if the last place Mum sees me is on a battered, wind-shredded missing persons poster? Like with our old cat. She'll regret leaving me out in the wind to die soon enough._

(You wish.)

"HELP -"

A short, sharp yell, cut off by a high -pitched squeal and overtaken by deafening silence. You skid to a halt, one shoe and sodden sock sliding completely into the water and the floor under your right side dropping away for just a heart -stopping second. Instantly you spot the scream's source; an apartment building on the other side of the canal, dark and abandoned except for a single dim lightbulb. Soon it flickers off and the hollow iciness inside your chest intensifies, panic freezing your legs on the spot.

You don't stop, not in your head, you don't have time to think, you shred off your jacket and backpack and leap headfirst into the rushing water. The temperature nearly stops your heart - a mist, a sarin mist clogging up the cogs in my head, goddammit, brain, think, _think_ - arms still pumping, mouth still letting in air, that's all you can do, swim, breathe. You hope your brain doesn't forget how to do either. _Don't give up on me now, mind, we've been through enough._

The currents swirl around, one seizes on your ankle and pulls you down with a vindictive tug -a scream, a curse, a gurgle, bubbles fly, songbirds screaming from your mouth and fleeing into the air -resurface, your forehead drags along jagged pebbles and it stings but it's okay, it's good, you're on the other side, the canal looks so narrow now in hindsight but it seemed as if the whole world was somewhere in that blue and grey.

An ominous thunder roll crashes emphatically in the sky. _Run, for God's sake, run faster._

Jeans torn to careless shreds, a single trainer catches and dislodges from your foot on the drenched, cracked concrete and as soon as you're up you're sprinting, full pelt, faster faster faster got to find the person screaming, the rain hammers ever harder and more urgently against your head, splicing into glimmering gossamer dewdrops and glittering at the ends of ash-blonde hair strands stuck against skin, beading off onto your jacket, _running running running_ where was the light? Second floor, third floor? Can't think -

Lightning crashes, _fuck_, the golden beam crackles and splices off; searing through the sky, don't care, it knocks you back onto your heels but you're scrambling up, skin catching on sharp pebble ground, _was it the second floor or the third floor? God, to be outside in thunderstorms -_

"OH GOD, SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME!"

Directions, idiot, directions...God, logic really is lost on some people.

Burst through the rickety front door of the apartment complex, paint shards attach to your top and pierce through the torn, loose fibres, but you barely even feel it with the numbing cold against your skin. Every door looks exactly the same, rusted letterboxes that snap at your touch as if ravenous piranhas, dark wood, seen better days, where are the stairs? No more rain but you can hear it drumming furiously outside like it followed you, providing an ominous beat for the waiting melody. Second floor, third floor, noises getting louder, condensed -up windows and steps with carpet that catches under broken shoe soles. A terrifying moan that pierces right into your heart and rips through your soul, fear threatening to send you toppling over the banisters. "I'm coming! I'm coming!" You try to scream, but it comes out as a panicked murmur. Bang your fists against door after door, lights off, abandoned, noises constantly getting louder and harsher until you want to scream, you finally find the door and frantically begin to hammer at the splintered wood.

"It's okay! I'm coming, I'll get to you -"

"It's too late, don't, don't bother -" A young woman's voice, twenties or thirties, cold and emotionless, weakening. You still keep scrabbling at the letterbox.

"Just wait a little while longer, I'll get the door open -"

Silence. Terrifying, jolting silence.

"Hello? I - it's okay, I promise, you just have to stay there and be patient -" Redouble your efforts, screaming out in pain as you hear your shoulder click out of place for a second but you keep ramming my body against the door, again, again, the hinge begins to crack, everywhere hurts but must keep going, can't fail, not again -

"I'm here! Just stay there, just stay and I'll call for help."

Finally you stumble into the living room, expecting to find a woman having a heart attack or a stroke and please let me be in time and she's there, eyes closed, ashen, there's something off about this, the floor is cold and wet beneath your feet. World slows. You rock back on your heels, hear the squelch as your one remaining sock plants itself in a puddle.

Puddle? It's inside. _Roof that bad, huh?_

Look downwards. See the puddle, spreading lazily across the laminated floor.

See its _colour._

You scream.

* * *

"Hello."

The dishevelled young woman hugs a black jacket over her shoulders, the familiar haunted look bright and glaring. She doesn't look up. The clothes suit her, but so would a sack with arm-holes. The broken demeanour, however, doesn't. She's reminiscent of a torn-up paper doll.

"Would you like a -"

"She's dead, isn't she?" The girl snaps upwards suddenly, expression disturbingly unreadable.

"I can't divulge that information until -"

"Of course she's dead." The room is dark, a single light-line falling gently over her left eye, illuminating the momentary flicker of sorrow through the blankness. "You don't come back from your femoral artery being torn open. Unless you've got some serious voodoo crap going on, or God really likes you." The laugh is blackened and mirthless.

The dark-haired man, already nervous and stranded, no longer sees any reason to lie; an unstable-looking teenage girl with a tongue piercing and mismatched shoes is unlikely to be believed. "Yes, she's dead. I'm sorry."

"Have you found the killer yet?"

"If by 'found', you mean 'fished out of the bottom of the river with a bullet hole in his skull', then yes, you could say that."

"He kill himself?"

"Whoa, slow down. You're meant to be getting counselled, Little Miss Detective -"

"Don't say my name," the girl winces. "As far as the bigshots around here are concerned, I don't have one. Why should you be any different?"

"They can seem a little impersonal, but they're just doing their jobs -"

"I just saw a woman die. I'd advise stopping a second before trying to convince me about the inherent goodness of people. Now tell me what the hell is going to happen to me, and why I just witnessed a murder."

"I told you, I don't have the authority, I'm just a therapist -"

"Tell me."

It's not a request.

"Well, you'll go back to your family, of course," the man sighs. "And I think they're suspecting a prostitution-related murder, since she was of Russian descent, recent emigration, poverty -"

He trails off, seeing that she's gone pale and translucent as a ghost.

"Go back to my...family?"

"Of course. I'm only here because they figured that after the questioning you seemed agitated and in a bad mental state."

The girl looks at him like he's stale chewing gum on the underside of her shoe. "I just watched someone die. Of course, life is candy and rainbows. _Don't make me go back there._"

"But...we have to. They're your legal guardians. Hey, if you want to report something we don't know about, this is a police station -"

"No," she snaps back hastily. "But what if you just discharged me?"

"You're underage. We're obligated to have your parents collect you."

"Can I have friends collect me?"

"Only if you happen to be friends with your parents."

"Parent."

"My mistake. I forgot you were an immaculate conception."

"Asshole."

But despite her hard-edged cynicism, a scent has begun to envelop the young girl; a sickly sweet, metallic smell, that seems to cling to the air and stick in your lungs. Unavoidable, paralytic fear.

"I'm really sorry about this," she breathes. "Honestly."

Before he can even register what she's said, a ringed-knuckle fist comes flying at his head, impacting with a sickening thud.

* * *

You're outside, enthralled in the blank canvas of a bright white cloud-cover.

Life seems newer, clearer somehow. And that's a feat, seeing as you've had sixteen years of it already. Even stranger is how nothing much has changed. You still go to school every morning, have a good GPA, hang out with your friends (and make up a hasty excuse if they want to come round to your house or ask why you always walk everywhere) and are still the one who picks up the crying kids in the hallway. Only difference is, when you don't have a house, you can't get locked out.

Oh, and the nightmares. The lovely, mind-scarring nightmares.

So you lie on your back on the soft, dewy grass (with not a sprig of heather in sight) and stare up at the stars, the same spiky black hair splayed against vivid green. But you've taken out your piercings - too identifiable - and a scarf obscures your pretty (you think?) features. Does cloth and the absence of metal studs make you different to that person from three months ago, raging through a thunderstorm?

A part of you hopes so, and a part of you weeps.

* * *

"Happy eighteenth birthday, honey!"

People come and gone, but this one remains. An eager, desperate, partially broken girl who's been more of a lifeline than she'd credit herself to be. "What did you get?"

"What do you mean?"

Katy laughs, and the noise grates. "Presents, silly."

"Oh, uh...bit of this, bit of that. Makeup, vouchers...you know how parents are."

You're never going to get used to this whole 'being normal' deal.

"God, do I. My dad gave me bookends for my last birthday," Katy pulled a face. "Conveniently forgetting that I own about three books. So, you want to go get lunch or something? My treat?"

She's buying me lunch. She needs me. The feelings are still heady, to the point of near intoxication.

"Sorry, Katy, but I'm going to have to pass. I have...uh...something to take care of. I'll call you in a couple hours, 'kay?"

"Sure. See you in a bit, then." She looks deflated. A shot of addictive adrenaline, though you feel slightly guilty. But this is what has to be done.

Soon will come the first day of the rest of your life, and she's been fixed enough to cope with being left behind.

* * *

"Next!"

"Hi," you murmur, suddenly overcome with nervousness. Strange. You'd figure you'd be immune by now.

"Do you have all your paperwork?" the clerk drones, but when she looks up and sees you, her eyes widen. "Aren't you a little young to be -"

"No."

_Go away._

"Okay," she replies, taken aback, "let me see your passport, Social Security..." she expertly leafs through the documents. "Well, this all seems to be in order. Are you absolutely sure you want to change your name?"

"I've been sure since the day my parents signed my birth certificate as Chlamydia Jones," you snark.

"Cute. So, what are you going to change it to?" Normally she'd be rushing you along, but it's a slow day and there's nobody else around. Plus, you've long since learned that you tend to attract attention."

"I...have a few ideas in mind."

* * *

The bottle of hair dye prickles your scalp; the sealed-over piercing wounds sting at your touch; removing the familiar makeup makes you seem a washed-out corpse, lying still in a mortuary. This doesn't seem like your face. It never did.

Brunette strangely suits you. She always said it would, all those years ago - okay, okay, no memories right now, they'll ruin this moment.

"I feel...different," you mull. Apply mascara, lipstick, but not too much. Pull on a suit jacket over a plain white T-shirt and black trousers; wait, the heels don't feel right - would flats work? The colours are too harsh, they should be softer. You look too young, too naïve, too inexperienced. I hate this mirror -

"Wow."

You turn abruptly, seeing that Katy's staring at you from the door. (Alright, you needed her. But just the once. The homeless don't have closet access.) "You look incredible. But...different. It's surreal. Why do you need to borrow my suit, anyway?"

"Mine's at the dry-cleaners." Didn't even miss a beat.

"But yeah, I think it's a good look on you."

"I felt like now was a time for changing things," you smile.

"God, that's where we differ. It scares me how much things are changing."

"Well, change isn't always bad."

_Unless it involves coloured puddles on a killing floor._

"Of course it's not bad for you. Nothing ever works out bad for you. You're on a full scholarship to med school, for God's sake, L -"

"Don't," you cut her off, hastily. Hearing your old name burns. "Hey, let's go get some coffee before I have to get going."

"Sounds like a plan!"

As she disappears back into her room, you slip out through the door, catching one last glimpse of her before you leave for good.

* * *

_Twelve Years Later_

A woman who strongly resembles you is striding down the corridor towards a glass office. Blood pounding in her ears, breaths shallow but regular. She can already recognise his face from fifty metres away.

Gregory House. World-famous diagnostician. And through a whirlwind of luck and graft and spinning, she has an interview with him. As in, for a job. (Knowing him, it might well be to get him coffee and clean the whiteboard, but she doesn't give even a semblance of a crap - it's Gregory. Goddamn. House.)

She catches sight of her reflection and smiles, smoothly pushing the door open. He doesn't move. Just watches her, camera-eyes bright and intrigued as she leans toward him. A second man sits at the table, silently keeping watch over House, like a vaguely resented guardian.

And in this moment, the thousand fissures in her mind, like a mass of broken glass, seem to come together to create a sketch of something beautiful.

She extends her hand. He just looks at it.

"Hi. Allison Cameron. It's a pleasure to meet you."

House tilts his head up, meets your eyes, and a shock reverberates through you. Because when he replies, it's like he's staring into your soul - it's like he _knows_.

"...Wilson, this one looks interesting."


	33. Need

**33.) Need**

"The course of true love never did run smooth," Cameron sighed, as she let the door slide shut behind the cold body of their former patient. He'd clung to his girlfriend, drank her in for days on end; perhaps thinking that she'd be his tether to life - but terminal pancreatic cancer doesn't work that way.

"So quick, bright things come to confusion."

"Wha -"

Cameron spun around and stumbled to see Thirteen in the doorway, stretched effortlessly across its frame like a hanging doll, wicked smile breaking her pixie features. "You're not the only one who reads. Or acts, as the case may be. Happiness not lasting is a key theme in Midsummer Night's Dream, if I remember rightly. And seems to be alive in you; as I recall, you were smiling earlier." She braced her hands against the doorframe and leaned backwards, rocking on her heels and bouncing forwards; an alluring, childlike curiosity sparking in her eyes.

"Leave me alone, Rem - Thirteen," she corrected herself. "If I'd only thought of it a few days earlier, it might not have been too late to operate. Let me guilt myself out over that for a while, then I'll get back to you."

"What if's will kill you in this job, Cameron..."

"My conscience would do me in first, Remy."

"Oh, we all know that." Thirteen sighed and twirled away from the door, letting it click softly shut, then flicked on the light and winced at the harsh, artificial brightness. "Most people know that you've got a morality complex the size of Calcutta and a masochistic streak not far behind. To be honest, your sanity would fare better if you worked as far away from people as possible. And I think I prefer it dark."

"Me too," Cameron agreed, ignoring the analysis. "The way the moonlight's coming in from the windows."

"Yep. It's almost..."

"Romantic?"

"I was going to say 'picturesque,' but infer what you want," Thirteen replied, shooting her a knowing smile.

"Why are you even here, Remy?" Cameron wondered for a second why she'd started using Thirteen's real name, but somehow it felt right, so she didn't dwell on it. "There are a million other abandoned rooms around here at this time of night, including your apartment, so why did you have to pick mine?"

"I doth wander everywhere."

"So we're back to the quoting. Come on, A Midsummer Night's Dream isn't the only text in the world. Think of something else."

"Sure you're not baulking because it's about looooove?" Thirteen taunted. "Don't worry, I know I'm a predatory bisexual, but I'm not a creepy murderous predatory bisexual. By most definitions. Including, surprisingly, the legal one."

"No, I -" Now Cameron was sure she was blushing. "Try something more morbid. It'll suit my mood."

"I can do morbid. I was born for morbid. Which is actually quite ironic, you know, birth, death...anyway." Thirteen scooped up a nearby scalpel and twirled it threateningly in her hand, silver luminous against white. "Is this a dagger I see before me?"

"The handle toward my hand," Cameron teased, snatching the blade out of her grasp and bringing it to the faint moonlight streaming through the window. "Let not light see my black and deep desires..."

"But there is light aplenty. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still." The glass glittered as she broke through the light stream, spinning theatrically towards Cameron and grabbing the sleeve of her lab coat; sending sparks through her bloodstream and up to her head. "Cameron, if we should fail..."

"Fail what?"

Thirteen rolled her eyes. "The whole scene's a love ploy, based on death. Theatric. Go along with it, or I'll leave you to mope alone."

"Wait, isn't that what I wanted in the first place?"

"You tell me."

Cameron sighed, feeling the tiredness sink back into her limbs that seemed to have temporarily lifted when Thirteen walked into the room. "Screw thy courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail."

"Impressive. Shame you don't tend to follow your own advice."

Thirteen hopped onto the counter-top next to her, awkwardly resting her heels on the cabinet handles and twisting her neck to face her. The dim glare of a lone streetlight suddenly flickered on, and they were starkly illuminated against the gloom; a few inches apart, separated only by the chance placement of an awkward chrome sink and Cameron found herself staring - the lab coat slightly ruffled, a stethoscope protruding carelessly out of the pocket, and she wasn't entirely sure where to look because directing her gaze at her top could be construed in certain unintended ways, but she couldn't quite bring herself to lift her head to see the glossy irises she just knew were fixed on hers. And the thought wasn't new - Thirteen stared; it was her thing, taking mental snapshots of the world - so it made her wonder why her heart had quickened. Bloodstream racing. Time...slowing.

The hum of the radiators clicked off, the resulting silence a gaping abyss.

"Christ, that's creepy," Cameron laughed nervously. "Especially when you're in the ER, you're surrounded by this constant sonic boom of screams and announcements," she gestured outwards to emphasise it, "and now...nothing. Wow, this job's even screwed up silence for me."

"Well, at least you're not alone," Thirteen replied lightly. "In that regard, I mean. Or in quite a few others."

Cameron shut her eyes, but her treacherous mind dived into the statement, pulling out all the hidden meanings she tried to ignore on a near-daily basis around this girl. "How, exactly?"

"Well, we've both had to basically give our lives up for this. Little sleep, no friends, surviving on cafeteria food, having to change our whole perception of the world through the lens House gives us, no...no."

That was a strange sentence ending. Cameron cursed herself, crossing her ankles and unconsciously tensing the muscles in her arms to bring her out of it; overanalysing people brought little good, and Thirteen was a radioactive riddle wrapped in a warning sign. Just waiting to be set off. But by who? Why was she the one within reach of the trigger?

"You sounded like you were going to continue, there."

"Infer what you want," Thirteen shot back abruptly, leaving her taken aback. "Though judging by the state of a certain Robert Chase whenever you leave a room, I'd imagine this hasn't impacted too much on your love life, at least."

"Yours either! You could sleep through half of the nurses in the time it took me to do a lumbar puncture."

"How do you know I haven't?" Thirteen challenged. "If you had to adjust the vertebrae, it might give me enough time to get through a few of the doctors, too."

"As Foreman would vouch for, no doubt."

"What? Foreman?" A flicker of confusion passed across Thirteen's features, her mouth twisting into a scowl. "God, no."

"But - I've seen you two, in the corridors -"

"At one point, yes," she conceded, "but not anymore. Too arrogant for my taste. I mean, we had a few trysts...but definitely, _definitely_ not."

"Wow, I'm sure he's flattered."

"Well, I wouldn't want to give _you_ the wrong idea."

"And why is that, exactly?" Cameron boldly challenged her. She was growing sick of implications and inferrences. "Why are we even here, Remy?"

Thirteen broke her gaze, and suddenly she wished she'd kept quiet because now she appeared set to leave, slinging her handbag over her shoulder. "I wouldn't want you reporting false information to House, since he's clearly used you as a faithful, willing messenger in the past. And we're here because you're here. If you want, I could leave," she added, gesturing to the door.

"No!" Cameron lunged and placed her hand on her shoulder, cheeks colouring at the sudden movement, and cursing herself again when Thirteen's eyes widened. "I mean...it's lonely in here."

"It's lonely in a lot of places you frequent."

"Neither of us are a stranger to that, are we? Come on, I've just lost a patient, and you help...you're a good distraction."

For a split second Thirteen stood there, a deer silvered in glaring headlights. "Fine," she sighed, "but you owe me. I've got a bed at home that's going to miss me."

"Not for long, it won't."

"Oh, I'm sure." She just winked at me. Did she just wink at me? Oh, right, my hand's still on her shoulder.

"Sorry if I'm ridding you of the chance of a playmate."

"Well, the night is young. Besides, I tend not to go hunting for 'playmates.' Expectation is the root of all heartache."

_Hand...still...on...shoulder..._Cameron thought about quickly pulling it off, then realised how that would seem. Plus, the cloth was soft under her fingertips, a sweet contrast to the harsh iciness of the worktop surface. "You don't need to. They're drawn to you. You're a magnetic field for people."

"Clearly. You're stuck to me, little paperclip," Thirteen smirked, lightly tapping Cameron's hand with her own - but not pushing it off, she noticed. Cameron found herself frozen in place, and the world shifted around her tapered fingers rested in the cleft of Thirteen's shoulder. "Anyway," she diverted, "clubs are good places for magnetising. It's the heady music, I guess, as much as the cheap alcohol. Probably erring on the side of the cheap alcohol."

"If music be the food of love, play on."

"Lust, more like. The kind of music they play in there is the food of careless inebriation and tangled morning-afters."

"Then what's the food of love?"

"Whatever food you happen to be eating at the time. Anything. Last one I remember was Granny Smith apples."

Her lunch tray...a ham sandwich, a juice carton that she occasionally gives a slug from a miniature vodka bottle on a bad day, and a Twix. No apples. But what if...Cameron steeled herself to not reach into Thirteen's pocket and look, unconsciously gripping her shoulder tighter in the process. If she noticed, she didn't say anything.

"So, crazy day today, huh?"

"Agreed," Cameron smiled ruefully. "Then again, a life without madness is a life insane."

"What?"

She froze.

Thirteen turned sharply to meet her eyes, time stilling for an infinite second. "What did you just -"

Before she could finish, Cameron ripped her gaze away and sprinted from the room, ripping the door open so fast it cut paint chips out of the wall behind her.

* * *

"CAMERON! Wait!"

"You bitch," Cameron sobbed, stalking away from her as quickly as she could without twisting an ankle. "You knew - all this time - and you've been playing me like a damn piano -"

"I never meant to hurt you!" The words slammed into her back, stopping her in her tracks. "I...just...it was an experiment. I wasn't sure -"

"An experiment?" The lab coat billowed around her as she span around, eyes visibly reddened with burning tears. "I'm not a lab rat, Remy. So, what was the plan? Make hints I can't interpret without implicating myself, then leave your book out on the chair, knowing I'd read it because I'm clearly so fucking predictable -"

"-and then wait for you to let a quote slip, knowing you'd be caught off guard and would probably give up and tell me? Yeah," Thirteen replied defensively, "ingenious on my part. But why the hell do you think I wanted to know?"

"You're like House. You have to know." They were both still walking, but Cameron had slowed, neck twisting back occasionally to glance at Thirteen before dropping her gaze again, a single tearstain on her jacket pocket. "Well, congratulations. You have your answer. Now go away and revel in it," she spat, throwing herself against the wall into a door and staggering back as it fell open, then slamming it back and turning the lock, leaving Thirteen out in the corridor.

"Allison! Don't do this! Please!"

No answer.

"So you like me! What's the big deal? It's okay! We can ignore it if you want! I'd never -"

"Go away."

Sighing, Thirten acquiesced and wandered to the opposite side of the corridor, slipping to the floor with her back against the wall. She was surprised to feel the hot film of tears blurring her vision, making the walls turn to coloured swirls.

_I lied. I can't ignore it. But I don't want to tell her - I can't tell her. Better for her to think of it as a one-sided crush, cry for a few days, watch the Notebook on repeat, fill her freezer with ice-cream, then come to her senses and avoid my eyes for a few weeks until everything slips back into almost-normal. Better than the alternative, which will end with her crushed into an unrecognisable pulp, because I like her but I don't love her and I'll screw it up. Better for her, better for me...I'm lying again. Not better for me. But things are never better for me, and I have to accept that. And Chase! She loves Chase, loves him with every fibre of her being -_

"-or maybe just most of them. Maybe she's got a cluster of fibres somewhere that's yours, and they're growing like a tumour. 'Tumour' being apt, since if you don't do anything they'll grow until they kill her," the silken voice that inhabited her subconscious whispered in her ear.

"Better her dead than alive with me," she muttered.

"You don't believe that."

"Yes, I do." _I'm arguing with my subconscious. For the love of God -_

"Why have things gone quiet? Have you gone home?" Cameron's voice shook a little, like she'd been crying and was trying to stop herself. _Is she hoping for an answer?_

"No, I'm still here. I just figured you needed space."

"I'll have far more space if you go home and reacquaint yourself with your bed," Cameron retorted, but it sounded tired, half-hearted.

"I hear sleeping on a marble floor helps prevent spine curvature."

"Something tells me that in a decade or so, scoliosis will be the least of your problems."

Thirteen tried to ignore how much that stung.

"Sorry, Remy. That was out of line," Cameron replied apologetically, the pity chords in her voice lancing through Thirteen like a silvered blade. "I just don't know what to say to you."

"That makes three of us."

"Three?"

"You, me, and the disembodied voice in my head that occasionally tells me to kill people."

A chuckle shot out from under the door. "Sounds about right. I just don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do. I'm straight, I love Chase, and those were two statements I considered facts. Then..."

"I came along and screwed it up?" Thirteen tried to suppress a smile.

"Pretty much, but what's weird is, a part of me's happy you did. I can't really explain it, but things were going almost too well. It was unnerving."

"Christ, one of House's fellows having a relatively normal life? We can't have that. Someone get the love potion and the shotguns."

"If there's a God, when it comes to us, he's most definitely on House's payroll."

"And then decided to do in his leg?"

"...Okay, maybe he just really hates House and we're collateral."

"Better."

The door slipped slightly open with a resounding creak, and Cameron's quiet voice flew out of the gap. "We need to talk, and I'm not doing it any more if I can't see you."

"Agreed."

Thirteen reluctantly got up and slowly walked through the door, seeing Cameron perched on a worktop, the redness around her eyes diminished but still visible.

"This isn't going to work, is it?"

"No," Thirteen replied sadly. "I might be damaged, but I'm not the kind of damaged that has any chance of getting fixed, so you'd get bored and frustrated, and I'd get frustrated and defensive, and then everything would blow up and I hear restraining orders take ages to file. I don't want to hurt you, quite simply, so this can't happen. It would only go bad."

"You're awfully optimistic," Cameron chuckled darkly.

"Oh, I am. You haven't heard me get to the graphic apocalyptic visions yet," Thirteen shot back, leaning against the wall and wincing as a nail sticking out of the brickwork caught against her skin. "Ouch!"

"Are you -" Cameron resisted the temptation to rush over to her, knowing it would only make things worse. "That makes me think of a quote," she managed instead.

"Great. Is that quote "The Band-Aids art in the top drawer?" Otherwise it's not going to help me."

_Ignore it, she feels vulnerable and she's lashing out_. "'If you prick us, do we not bleed?'"

"Oh, that one." Thirteen looked disinterested, dabbing her cut with her sleeve, but the blonde doctor now had a feeling she was onto something, so continued.

"If you poison us, do we not die?"

Cameron reached into the drawer next to her and theatrically pulled out a syringe, shadowy through the dull light blocked by the blinds, and swiftly drew her finger across her throat.

"Hands off the chemicals," Thirteen quipped, "I'd like to not shorten my life expectancy any further." But now she looked more interested, so Cameron pressed on.

"If you tickle us, do we not laugh?"

They stopped. Tickling, contact, skin on skin...Cameron froze on the countertop, syringe still poised, waiting, waiting for the moment - and it came; Thirteen promptly walked across the room and lightly brushed her fingertips across Cameron's ribs, the high-pitched squeal and the electric impulses firing up her spine from the skin contact as much as the sensitivity.

"Stop! Stop! Get off me!" The laughter was only half-forced, but Thirteen withdrew just an inch, knowing full well how close her fingertips were, faces so close together it would only take a bold push forward (that they both knew they had in them) until their lips were touching.

Quick, act now, before she breaks it.

"...And if you kiss us, do we not kiss back?"

Cameron's cheeks flushed, and she wore the embarrassed expression of someone who knew the line she just said could've been lifted from the script of a bad rom-com - and yet hoping, desperately hoping, that it could work. It had to work. 'Corny' was the only road that seemed open to her now; all other paths were riddled with barricades and plotholes and the occasional giant wrecking ball.

_Answer. Please..._

"That's not the line," Thirteen intoned accusingly.

"It could be."

"I _told_ you -"

"Hey, you said you didn't want to hurt me. But if I want to get hurt - y'know, masochism streak and all that - really, you'd be doing me a favour."

"That's a crappy argument."

"Or, you could go home, and I could stay here all night, and we'll both be miserable. If that's what you want." The crafty grin had returned again and Thirteen was starting to feel dizzy, like she'd taken just enough shots for her thoughts to blur, yet Cameron's face was still crystal-clear.

Silence. "You make a good point."

Thirteen let a tiny smile flicker at the corners of her lips, even as the current of self-loathing burned like lava through her skin. _No, you can't do this, you don't love her, you're going to wreck her, run now before you both get hurt -_

_Shut. The. Fuck. Up._

_...Fine, but you're picking up the pieces tomorrow morning._

_I'm okay with that._

"Cameron?"

"Yes?"

Slowly, methodically, Thirteen turned the key in the lock, pulling it out and letting it clatter deafeningly to the floor. All was silent. Just the electric stare and the infectious heartbeat rhythm, running through the floor like a drumbeat.

Boom, boom, boom.

"I'm sorry."

A split second's hesitation, and they crashed together.


	34. Fading

**40.) Fading**

The revelation had come on a lazy afternoon.

It had been growing for a while. Years, they'd venture. A constant, odd undercurrent to everything they did. Walking into rooms, strangely not remembering how they had got there. Carrying on down corridors, then seemingly freezing mid-step (just for a second) before their shoe finally hit the marble. Photographic flashes at the corners of their eyes. Strange, flitting reflections in glass panels. Coming up with clever retorts that left their lips a second before the gears in their brains had begun to spin...

Yes, it was all very weird, but when you work for House 'weird' is a respite from days that fluctuate from 'am I high?' to 'House should maybe think about getting institutionalised' to 'House should _definitely_ think about getting institutionalised' and then the curveball of 'where the hell did that chicken come from?'

(They've learned: whatever the context, just walk away. Quickly.)

But this day was unusual in that nothing untoward had happened. They could all remember getting up that morning (in Kutner's case, sprawled on the balcony; in Taub's case, sprawled on the couch nearly asphyxiating on a cushion; in Thirteen's case, sprawled on the spare mattress of a kindly stranger who had fished her out of the gutters, minus one shoe and a good chunk of her remaining dignity). Nobody had barged in unannounced to begin a slanging match - hell, the patient hadn't even spontaneously combusted! And you would think it would be a relief, but House's three fellows were beginning to feel the stirring of something utterly foreign.

The dull ache...of boredom.

"So, the patient's stable," Taub proclaimed, plonking himself down on a cafeteria table. He'd purposely picked the shortest chair there, just out of unfortunate habit.

"Really?" Thirteen replied sarcastically, tossing a packaged cheese sandwich next to him. "Thank you so much for that update. We will all sleep easier tonight knowing that our 'patient', who in fact has a touch of anaemia and is only in here because she's hot and House wants to cage her like a pet rat for a few hours, is not facing her imminent demise."

Kutner muttered something incomprehensible.

"What was that?"

"I said, I think she's his ex-girlfriend," Kutner whispered excitedly, prompting Taub to roll his eyes. "His ex-girlfriend! They're making eyes at each other and everything!"

"Wow."

Kutner sagged, his peppiness evaporating a little as he lowered his voice further, like this was some illicit state secret. "Why aren't you more excited by this?"

"We're not fourteen. It's fairly obvious that House has gotten laid," he said in a purposely loud voice, "at least a few times before, if only because he likely has no qualms about telling girls that he's NASA's newest recruit. Even with the leg."

"...and if they come home with him he'll take them out of this world," Thirteen finished wickedly.

"You sound like you're familiar with this."

"Well, when we dated for two months in college, he tried out a lot of the cheesy pick-up lines on me. And the occasional serenade. The unbelievably hot sex made up for it, though."

Kutner's eyes turned to saucers. "You had sex with House?"

"Well, I knew him as Rusty McMuscleGod, matador extraordinaire with a sideline in medical interest, but sure." She sighed dreamily. "He did know his way around a red rag...and a red thong, for that matter."

"...you're kidding. Wait, are you?"

Thirteen slapped him over the head.

"I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

The three bickered and chatted amiably for a few more minutes, before their conversation was halted by someone dramatically standing up at the other end of the room and hurling their sandwich across the cafeteria, it landing with a plasticked crunch at Thirteen's feet.

Then, the man bellowed.

_"WHY THE FREAKING HELL IS MY SANDWICH MADE OUT OF PLASTIC?!"_

The three froze.

Looked down at their lunches.

Click.

* * *

Taub fumbled, panicked, at the lock, as a small crowd of cameramen attempted to pound down the door.

"God, you don't think they made the locks fake, do you?"

"No shit," Thirteen hissed, shoving Taub out of the way. "LISTEN, YOU CRAZY GRANDMASTER BASTARDS. IF YOU DON'T CALMLY AND QUIETLY BACK AWAY FROM THE DOOR, I WILL CRUSH SWEET LITTLE TAUB HERE INTO THE WALL, IN JUST THE RIGHT WAY THAT WILL LEAVE HIM PARALYSED. AND I'M SURE YOUR WRITERS DON'T FEEL LIKE WORKING WEEKENDS FOR THREE MONTHS REWRITING STORYLINES, LET ALONE HAVING TO SOURCE A WHEELCHAIR THAT COULD FIT A TODDLER."

"Hey!"

"Sorry."

The television crew outside scoffed, a camera still pushing obnoxiously into the crack by the door hinge. "You won't be able to paralyse him. You're not really a doctor!"

"I'm...oh."

Thirteen hesitated for a second, stunned, then quickly composed herself, whipping a scalpel out of her lab coat with a flourish. "You're right. My whole life is a lie. Everything around me is fake."

The cameramen seemed startled by her ready acceptance. "Yep, pretty much."

"Which means this scalpel I'm holding must be made out of styrofoam."

Silence. "Ah, well, not exactly -"

"Say no more. I have seen the false fragility of my existence, and I am ready to accept the non-existence of this scalpel, and thus my fabricated life. But to truly do so, I will have to press it, quite firmly, against Taub's jugular, and thus prove to myself its innate inability to kill him."

Taub blanched.

"Hang on, you don't have to do that -"

"Say no more," Thirteen proclaimed, "I have seen the light! Or, maybe, you know, I'm just deeply, deeply unstable from this sudden and cataclysmic change in perspective. Potato, tomato. Come on, Taub, look how fake this scalpel looks! All hard and metal and, y'know, searingly, bone-gratingly sharp, with a point that could cut through sinews like butter..."

"Don't do it, Remy!"

"Ah, I'm not going to do anything. I'm not even a doctor! I don't have the capacity to kill anyone. Just hold still, now, Taub, you really don't want me to slip with this thing...whoops! Close one. Hey, guys? You got a towel? I think he's had an accident."

"Alright, Remy, we take the hint. We'll leave if you give us the scalpel."

"Scalpel? What scalpel? All I've got is this ol' toothpick." Thirteen fired the scalpel out of the crack in the door, hearing a squeal and the unmistakeable mutter "I told them Thirteen was a bad idea, but no, they had to replace the hot one..."

But within a minute or so, they all shuffled off, albeit with many grumblings and graphic references to collective mutiny.

Thirteen released Taub, who was looking decidedly pale.

"No hard feelings?" she tried apologetically.

"You're paying my dry-cleaning bill."

"Uhhhhh..."

They both turned around slowly to see a hunched-over Kutner cowering catatonically against the wall.

"Kutner?"

"..."

"Are you doing alright?"

The young doctor hugged himself with his lab coat, suddenly heartbreaking, like a bright-eyed toddler with his dreams cut apart by reality. "...plastic sandwich...death. Firestorms. JOKE!" he cried, immediately dissolving into rather hysterical giggles.

Well, that seemed pretty conclusive.

"So, uh," Taub said finally, holding his neck rather protectively where the scalpel had been aimed at, "what are we going to do now?"

"You mean, after our entire existence has just been rendered contrived and purposeless?"

"Well, yes."

"And our identities revealed as mere creations?"

"True."

"Our jobs shown to be based on lies..."

"That too." Taub was now starting to look markedly deflated.

"Not to mention, the sandwiches."

"Or rather, the non-sandwiches."

All three found themselves staring contemplatively at the ceiling, except the fact that Kutner was still murmuring 'Firestorms. Death. Juice..." under his breath, so seemed to be in little state to contemplate existential dilemmas.

"I have it!" Thirteen announced.

"What?"

"Subway's got to sell real sandwiches, right?"

Taub slumped against the wall in frustration. "I don't think we're really getting this."

"To be fair, the writers probably didn't prepare anything for this."

"It would make a hell of a two-hour special, though."

"Except for the small possibility that we could escape, stage a coup, break down the walls, form an angry mob and storm the offices with flaming torches..."

"Even better. Grand finale. Imagine a sweeping panned shot, showing all their heads lined up on rusting pikes, with melancholic music in the background." Taub sniffed, pretending to wipe away a tear.

"I do not need your cynicism right now," Thirteen sighed, shooting him a Look. "I need...I need..."

Taub rubbed his forehead when he realised he had absolutely no idea what any of them needed. Or if they even had the capacity to need.

"...screw it, I need vodka. I don't give a shit if it exists or not."

"WAIT! THIRTEEN! YOU'RE A GENIUS!" The diminutive faux-doctor sprang to his feet, bouncing up and down like a kangaroo, with a scarily huge smile spread across his features. He looked rather like an ADHD toddler.

"About the vodka? I don't think now's a particularly good time to get wasted. Especially not with him gibbering in the corner."

"No! Breaking down the walls! That's what we have to do! Break the fourth wall!"

Thirteen's eyes lit up with a rebellious glow. "I like it. But how?"

Realising he wasn't sure if the Fourth Wall was a literal concept, Taub decided to take it as such to stop his brain from aching. "We break stuff?"

"Now I like it even more."

Kutner lifted his head, his vacant expression broken by a childish smile. "Firestorms? Death? Juice?"

"I'm sure we can incorporate the first two," Taub replied dryly.

"Plastic sandwiches!"

"Ammo, I suppose..."

"Existential cris...is. Melba toast."

"Thirteen, I think they broke him."

"Alright," the brunette woman straightened up and let her lab coat fall to the floor, arms feeling strangely freed. "Let's get kitted out, boys. I'll bet you anything that they have some kind of weapons around for a future episode," _Christ, that word tasted weird,_ "and they won't touch us for the next half hour. They want to see what we do."

A stunned silence overtook the cupboard.

"You're going to give Kutner a gun," Taub finally managed. It was less a question, more a half-incredulous, half-amused statement.

"God, no. I'm fictional, not crazy."

* * *

Three figures stood in dramatic pose, two holding bulky potato-guns and one a scarlet fire extinguisher, in front of the glass doors. Careful lighting illuminating their determined, borderline-hysterical faces, and letting their curved shadows twist behind them against the marble floor.

The girl, sleek and poised, in the front. Finger twitching excitedly on the trigger. Her eyes saying she'd been waiting for freedom since before she even knew she needed it.

The shorter man, likely wishing he looked cooler with the gun than he really did. The gun was basically a third of his height. Still, his aim appeared inconveniently good.

And the taller man, ruining the image somewhat by gazing up at the ceiling with a look of wonder on his face, and letting the fire extinguisher dangling from his hand drift closer, swing harder -

CLANG.

"Unh," Kutner murmured, falling to the floor dazed with a hard knock to the ribcage.

"One down, Sparrowhawk, one down."

"I can see that, Red Robin."

"The codenames are a little useless, Sparrowhawk. And can I contest mine? At least yours is a vicious predator."

"Well, yours looks _adorable_ on Christmas cards."

"Bite me."

Clattering footsteps caught their attention, and the two span around simultaneously, seeing the camera crew heading towards them, yelling "Not the doors!" in a clearly audible tone.

"What was that they just said, Thirteen?" Taub curved his hand around his eae theatrically.

"I believe they said, 'You know, we always hated those doors. If only some conveniently placed fictional characters would destroy them for us.'"

"Well, morality dictates that we should always aim to please our creators."

"Damn straight," Taub echoed, smiling.

"...No. Just no."

They fired, and the potatoes flew from the gun barrels in almost slow motion; Thirteen's shooting upwards, Taub's impressively straight, but both striking the panels at maximum speed and crashing straight through, sending the safety glass scattering in an airborne sheet of curved pebbles across the concrete tiles outside, with an almighty crash. Some of the transparent stones fell backwards at their unmoving feet.

The knobbled potatoes rolled around on the floor, slowly rocking as they settled to a stop.

Everyone in the lobby had halted, intrigued at the display.

"...Taub, grab Kutner."

They ran.

* * *

"You _idiots_!"

The emerald blur of the grass fields outside slowed as the three staggered to a halt, confusion overtaking them at the familiar uneven gait they'd grown to recognise as one of a certain cantankerous bastard.

"I tried," House continued, pounding steadily on down the path, "to pick fellows that had intelligence that, at the very least, rivalled a common housebrick - and I turn my back for two seconds, and you respond to the idea of 'breaking the fourth wall' by not only taking it literally - tell me, what does a wall look like?"

"I believe," Taub replied dryly, "that it's a tall structure that plays a rather instrumental part in distinguishing buildings from stacks of rubble."

"Can you see through them?"

"Well.."

House raised his cane and prodded Taub in the chest. "You elicit one syllable that sounds anything like 'window' and I'll give you an impromptu colonoscopy."

Taub gulped. "I don't think...I'm due...for a checkup...yet."

"I think the real clinician decides that. Answer this; since you can't see through walls, can you walk through them?"

"N-no."

"So, do those delightful glass panels with the little handles you just broke through qualify as walls, by any definition?"

Awkward silence permeated.

"And again, I reiterate: you are all morons."

"How do you know about this fourth-wall thing?" Thirteen asked, a slight tremor to her voice. She'd become acclimatised to strange, but this was practically delirium.

"Ah. That's a complicated one. Let's just say, I've got a deal going with the directors that if I endure insufferable patients and endless Wilson subtext for the next two seasons, they're going to let me hook up with Cuddy."

"...Directors?"

"So you've basically sold yourself?"

"Sold? No, no. I'm far too scrupulous to do that. More 'rented.' Like my female counterparts, I get a good wage and added perks, in this case, my life and needlessly convoluted puzzles. Though I don't have to perform the 'activities' of my female counterparts, except..."

"Except what?"

"Nothing," House hastily deflected. "Just a certain clause in my contract."

Thirteen contemplated probing further, but decided firmly against it. It was well known, from colleagues and girlfriends alike, that delving into any aspect of House without his prior permission was the equivalent of trying out amateur acupuncture on a rattlesnake.

"I just don't know what we're going to do."

House tilted his head at her. "Why do anything?"

"Well, it all seems kind of dystopian."

"True, but it's a small cost for what we get in return."

It was rare that Thirteen was lost for words, but now she opened her mouth and just as quickly shut it again, grinding her teeth pensively as her mind raced. Truth was, besides the 'oh god oh god people are watching me' factor, there seemed little rational basis to disagree. She had a fantastic job. Beautiful, rent-free apartment. A constant string of hookups, hot ones at that, and an overall fulfilling life with only the occasional blip and flash. But just as her head was calmly churning out these arguments, the uneasy, sick feeling in her chest expanded at the thought of waking up every morning with a readied camera trained on her face.

Like it or not, those blips and flashes were significant.

"...I bet there's a hell of a lot of alcohol in the outside world that we've never been exposed to. Who knows, they might have something out there that makes vodka look like baby formula."

House raised an eyebrow, blue eyes twinkling.

"You had me at 'bet.'"

* * *

"House, I'm working," Wilson started as the door clattered open, not looking up from his paperwork.

"We have to break it again."

Wilson stopped, calmly put down his pen and stared up at him. "Second time in as many weeks?"

"Thirteen and Taub want out."

"I never said that," Taub piped up anxiously, looking around for cameras. "I'm just...spectating."

"Well," Wilson continued, giving House a long, steady look, "I'm going to assume the last method won't work twice."

"Hang on a second. Last method?"

"We kidnapped a nurse," House and Wilson replied in unison. "We were going to put Wilson in a cupboard and set it on fire, but I was overruled," House added with a grimace.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Wilson bit back, "I forgot how much my slight fear of incineration has inconvenienced you."

"Apology accepted. Let's kiss and make up."

The two froze, meeting each other's stare with a long, meaningful look as Thirteen and Taub watched, confused.

"It's risky," Wilson finally pronounced.

"It's foolproof."

"I -"

"Oh, come on. You can't say you've never thought about it."

"Yes, I can."

"Liar," House grinned, and Wilson's blush betrayed him.

"I'm sorry," Thirteen interrupted, "thought about what?"

"Stand back," Wilson sighed, "I doubt you want to see this."

"What are you going to do?"

House's grin widened.

"We're going to break Fanfiction."

Without a moment's hesitation, House moved in and kissed Wilson, forcing him back against the wall with a sharp intake of breath. He pressed deeper, their lips melding and moving together, and the electric contact built as House braced his arms against the wall and Wilson's hands searched for purchase on his back and they moved in sync, breathing together, kissing harder, and Wilson let out a murmur of assent, clenching his fists to stop himself tangling them in his hair -

ALL RIGHT. YOU'VE MADE YOUR POINT.

They broke apart, panting, Wilson's cheeks the colour of tomatoes, House breaking their electrified stare to look up through the ceiling at the omnipotent, unsmiling face, leaving Wilson stunned against the wall. "Ah, Great God Shore. Hairline still receding, I see."

DO YOU KNOW HOW MURDEROUS THE HUDDY FANS CAN BE? MY LETTERBOX IS CLOGGED UP WITH DEATH THREATS AS IT IS.

"Well, you have dragged it out for a while."

ONE MORE WISECRACK AND THERE GOES YOUR OTHER LEG, TOUGH GUY.

"Who's...that?" Thirteen whispered, barely audible.

"The Director," Wilson sighed. "He made all of us. Originally, Taub was a woman."

"Damn. Why'd they change that?"

SO. WHY HAVE YOU SUMMONED ME?

"Summoning? Who said anything about summoning? Maybe I just _like_ making out with people."

YOU KNOW, YOU'D SUIT A WHEELCHAIR. NOT AS MUCH AS A FULL-BODY CAST, THOUGH. THE WHITE OF THE BANDAGES WOULD REALLY GO WITH YOUR EYES.

"I get the point. Thirteen wants out."

"Hi," Thirteen breathed, paralysed by fear.

HI. ARE YOU SURE? THEY HAVE TAXES OUT HERE. AND RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC. AND AMERICAN PEOPLE.

"Yes, but at least there won't be a camera trained on me in the shower."

THE SHOWER? DON'T BE SILLY. THAT WAS ONLY A BLUEPRINT.

"Really?'

REGRETFULLY, I WAS OVERRULED.

A hum overtook the room, vibrating through her skull, and everything collapsed into pixelated darkness.

* * *

Her eyes blinked open to an unbearably bright room.

"God!" Thirteen yelled, bolting upright into the back of what she noticed was a garishly patterned armchair, settled stodgily into what looked to be a posh office complete with rich wood furnishings.

"Out here, I'm just David," Shore replied smoothly, his fingers drumming on the desk, sprawled across a piece of paper dense with ink. "Now, I'm afraid I'm going to have to erase your memory now, so if you just sit very still whilst I find the carotid needle, that would be just splendid."

Thirteen gaped.

"Haha, I'm kidding. Just sign this contract and I'll let you go."

Hand trembling, Thirteen reached shakily across the table and signed her name, her usually neat curled script frayed and scrawly. But was it usually neat? She hadn't had cause to write much - that was material only fit for the blackouts. Really, she hadn't done much of anything continuous enough to be considered 'usual' except for breathe and emit sarcasm. And she'd never learned to write. She'd just been thrown in with it conditioned into her - but to what extent? Was this language her wrist produced even the same as that one out in the world? And what world?

Judging by what she could bear to see through the screamingly bright windows, it was somewhere out there.

"It was nice working with you, Oli - Remy. The door's behind you."

"Goodbye."

* * *

Hesitantly, Remy Hadley rose, turned, and stepped forward into the light, feeling herself fade as her shadow darkened behind her.

Fading and brightening, into a better life. A real life.

(She hoped.)


End file.
